DISINFO: Germany waited until it was impossible to make new tests that would refute the Novichok claim
SUMMARY
It is convenient that the German authorities didn’t publish the results of the tests on the alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny for a long time, given that now it will be impossible to carry out more tests to confirm or challenge those results. The Germans waited until every possible time frame passed for the decomposition of the substance, and now they are saying that they found something and will probably stick to this version.
RESPONSE
This is part of a pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign on the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The use of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group has been established beyond any doubt by a specialist Bundeswehr laboratory. The use of multiple and simultaneous versions of an event involving questionable actions by the Russian government or its allies, in order to confound citizens about the actual truth, is a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation strategy, already seen in the cases of the MH17 downing, the illegal annexation of Crimea, the murder attempt against Sergei and Yulia Skripal or chemical attacks in Syria. See other examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives on Alexei Navalny’s poisoning in our database, such as claims that only caffeine and alcohol were found in his blood, that the US wanted to use it to block Nord Stream 2 and Russia’s vaccine against coronavirus, that the West hopes that he dies to have an excuse for new sanctions, or that Western accusations about Navalny’s case are as false as they were about Sergei Skripal and Alexander Litvinenko.