The US State Department blamed the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) of Russia for the attempt to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny with the help of Novichok-class nerve agent.
“The United States believes that officers from the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) used a Novichok nerve agent to poison Mr. Navalny. There is no plausible explanation for Mr. Navalny’s poisoning other than Russian government involvement and responsibility,” a State Department spokesperson said. “Of course, President Putin and the Russian government would have us believe otherwise.”
Russia obviously highly likely behind Navalny poisoning
“Russia has suggested numerous, often contradictory, conspiracy theories. Let’s be clear — these types of conspiracy theories are nothing more than a means to deflect attention from the serious questions before the Russian government, which it has yet to answer,” the spokesperson said.The United States has “full confidence” in the findings of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which confirmed the earlier findings by German, French and Swedish laboratories proving that Navalny was exposed to the Novichok nerve agent.According to unconfirmed reports, the United States has prepared new sanctions against Russia in response to the Navalny case. However, in order to effect them, one needs to obtain approval from the entire American government and Donald Trump personally. It is worthy of note that Donald Trump has never blamed Russia specifically for poisoning Navalny. In addition, Trump cast doubts on Moscow’s involvement in major cyberattacks on American government structures that took place a few days ago. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in September that the Russian administration could be behind Navalny’s poisoning. The above-mentioned statement from the US State Department makes Moscow’s involvement clear. Russian President Putin stated at his annual press conference on December 17 that Navalny’s investigation into the group of people who supposedly poisoned him was nothing but an act of “legalization of materials from American special services” with which Alexey Navalny is allegedly connected. Therefore, the Russian president said, Russian special services should “keep an eye on him.” He also said that “if they really wanted to poison Navalny, they would have implemented the intention to the end, otherwise – who needs him?” Putin wondered. The operation to poison Alexey Navalny was supposedly conducted by the group of at least eight FSB agents, members of the secret department operating under the cover of the FSB Institute of Forensic Science (aka NII-2 FSB or military unit 34435), the joint investigation by The Insider, Bellingcat, CNN and Der Spiegel said. The publications conducted their investigation with the participation of Alexey Navalny himself and the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) that he chairs.According to the official version, the main goal of NII-2 is to conduct expert examinations: the institute participated in investigations into all major events that Russia saw in its recent history. These included:
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