World leaders can be in little doubt: the evidence leads directly to Moscow and Putin
The debate over what precisely happened to Alexei Navalny has raged for almost two weeks. Some facts are agreed. The Russian opposition leader drank a cup of tea at Tomsk airport and then collapsed on a flight back to Moscow. After cursory treatment in a Russian hospital, he was flown to Berlin. Since then German doctors have been treating him in the Charité hospital, where he remains in a medically induced coma.
Far murkier is the question of who poisoned Navalny and why. On Wednesday the German government provided a pretty big clue when it revealed Navalny was poisoned with novichok. This is the substance used in 2018 against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. It was smeared on the front door of Skripal’s Salisbury home. Novichok also killed Dawn Sturgess, a Wiltshire woman who unknowingly sprayed it on her wrists.
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