Alexei Navalny died: the day of the poisoning and the mystery of the water bottle

Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s main opponent, was found dead this Friday in a Russian prison, in the latest chapter of a life marked by political persecution and even attempted poisoning.

One of the most extreme episodes in Navalny’s life occurred on August 20, 2020 when he had to be hospitalized after a failure during a flight between Siberia and Moscow.

Navalny had to be transferred on a medical plane to Germany, where He remained in an induced coma for more than two weeks. while being treated with an antidote. Members of his team have accused the Kremlin of being involved in a poisoning from the start, accusations that Russian officials have vehemently rejected.

A German military laboratory has established that the Russian adversary fhe was poisoned with Novichokthe same type of Soviet-era substance that Britain says was used on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, in 2018.

The German government said independent analyzes by laboratories in France and Sweden supported its findings. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague, also analyzed Navalny’s samples in its designated laboratories.

The remains of the poison were found in a bottle of water, in a hotel where the adversary had stayed.

The Kremlin claims that Russian doctors who treated him in the Siberian city of Omsk, where he was transferred after his plane made an emergency landing, They found no evidence that Navalny had been poisoned.

Vladimir Putin’s government has repeatedly pressured Germany to share its adversary’s tests and other medical data and compare its notes with those of Russian doctors.

German authorities responded to Moscow’s request by stressing that they must already have their own samples given that Navalny is hospitalized in Omsk for two days.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who canceled his planned trip to Berlin on Tuesday, said in an interview earlier this week that Russian authorities had conducted a preliminary investigation and documented meetings the adversary had before he became ill, but stressed that investigators need to see the evidence. of poisoning to initiate criminal proceedings.

The day of the poisoning

According to the testimonies of his assistants, as well as other passengers, Navalny was seen smiling and without problems during the time spent before boarding the plane on August 20, 2020. He also exchanged jokes and comments with people who recognized him and greeted him.

According to his publicist, Kira Yarmysh, the man had not consumed anything that morning before arriving at the airport. It was during the first half hour of the flight that Navalny began to feel ill.

The gravity of the situation became apparent to other passengers when one of the flight attendants asked over the intercom if there was a doctor on board. It was at that moment that the pilot was informed that there was a medical problem and first aid was initiated on Navalny.

Less than two minutes after the plane made an emergency landing, airport medical staff went up to evaluate the patient. They immediately realized the gravity of the situation.and asked for an ambulance to take him to a health center, where he was taken to intensive care.