DISINFO: Navalny poisoning: A massive disinformation campaign against Russia
SUMMARY
Groundless attacks on Russia continue. A massive disinformation campaign has been launched. This clearly indicates that its initiators’ main task is not taking care of Alexei Navalny’s health and finding out the true reasons for his hospitalisation, but mobilising sanctions sentiments.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative on the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, portraying Western governments and institutions as inherently Russophobic and trying to harm Russia. A prominent Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny fell il during a flight from Siberia to Moscow on the 20th of August. Initially hospitalised in Omsk, at the request of his family he was transferred to Charité hospital in Berlin. Clinical findings at the Charité hospital indicated that Navalny was poisoned with a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors. Subsequent toxicological tests provided unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group in the blood samples of Alexei Navalny. The European Union condemned the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in the strongest possible terms. Pro-Kremlin disinformation is trying to link this story with various factors - the US' fight against the Russian vaccine, the fight against Nord Stream 2, the fight against Putin, to curb his desire to interfere in Belarus’ affairs. See related disinformation cases alleging that the West will falsely accuse Russia of poisoning Navalny as with Skripal and Litvinenko; the West has an interest in the death of Navalny to launch a new wave of sanctions against Russia, that the West needed the pretext to open sanctions against Russia, and that there is no evidence Navalny was poisoned.