Written by J.Hawk exclusively for SouthFront
What happened to Navalny?
The short answer is we don’t know. Open-source information is contradictory in the extreme. However, both the course of events and Russian expert opinions make the allegation that Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent Russian doctors, including world-renowned toxicologists who have ran analyses on Navalny’s biological samples, are adamant there were no signs of poisoning, and instead hypothesized he has suffered from a rare metabolic disorder. Chemical weapons specialists are similarly incredulous that Navalny supposedly transferred traces of the nerve agent to a water bottle in his possession (as alleged by German politicians) but managed not to poison anyone on that flight, in spite of throwing up in the airplane bathroom and having to be manhandled by passengers and crew after losing consciousness. Nor was the Omsk hospital staff affected—evaluations performed afterwards showed no presence of toxic substances consistent with nerve agents. The absence of nerve agent in Navalny while in Russia is also indirectly confirmed by the Russian government’s willingness, even eagerness, to have him fly to Germany in order to not have his potential death on their hands. That permission would have never been given had nerve agent poisoning been detected in Russia or, worse, Russian leadership actually ordered Navalny killed by poison, which is an extremely unlikely proposition for a wide range of reasons. Moreover, had that order been given, Navalny would have died in the Omsk hospital that actually saved his life—a fact that is hardly consistent with the Putin-ordered assassination theory. Poisoning Navalny, then saving his life and allowing him to go to a NATO country with traces of the poison still in his body, in order to enjoy the inevitable international scandal, simply flies in the face of logic and common sense.
The German version is of course the one Western media portrayed as unalloyed truth. Navalny was poisoned with a “novichok family” nerve agent, with traces of it found in Navalny’s skin and blood samples, and the aforementioned water bottle that remained in the possession of Navalny’s relatives (who likewise suffered no ill effects from handling it). However, according to German news reports, it took several days to isolate the tocsin, and moreover, in contrast to Russian doctors and specialists who spoke on the record, German experts and physicians are entirely anonymous. No German toxicologists have yet come forward and put their reputations on the line. Apart from anonymous press releases, the only Germans to have voiced the allegation of Navalny poisoning are politicians, including Angela Merkel and her Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. To make matters worse, the Bundeswehr biochemical warfare lab that delivered the diagnosis refuses to release a detailed report on how it analyzed the samples, citing “secrecy”.
All in all, in the absence of evidence and given the lack of transparency of the German investigation, combined with the unwillingness to provide Russia with any official documents on the matter, suggests the German version is the less credible of the two by far. What might account for this disparity?
Der Merkelbunker
Considering the state of affairs described above, it would appear that Angela Merkel was set up, with the main question here being, by whom? Even though from the perspective of “cui bono” United States is the obvious suspect, it does not appear “highly likely” it was the reason German labs may have found byproducts of a nerve agent in Navalny’s system. One can also rule out a British or US intelligence operation in the Russian Federation. US agents would have risked capture, and entrusting Navalny’s entourage with such a mission would be a recipe for disaster. Moreover, were Navalny poisoned in Russia by US or British agents, signs of poisoning would have been quickly detected, and an investigation launched against the most likely suspects in Russia.
It appears more “highly likely” that Angela Merkel’s own government factions played a really nasty trick on her, by opportunistically using Navalny’s illness in order to exert pressure on Merkel and force her to scuttle North Stream 2 which is, after all, one of her signature projects. This would not only fatally weaken her politically, but also force a reorientation of Germany’s foreign policy toward a higher state of confrontation with both Russia and China, incidentally fully subordinating its not only foreign but also domestic economic policy to the United States. Angela Merkel’s relatively measured approach to Russia is not due to her being some sort of a Russophile. There is no evidence suggesting such a set of beliefs. She is, however, a German nationalist who is aggressively pursuing the goal of expanding Germany’s power through the domination of the EU, and extensive economic contacts with Eurasia. These policies naturally made her enemies in both Europe and the United States.
But her luster as a leader has worn down over time, making the maintenance of the ruling coalition an ever more difficult task. While her position as Chancellor is still secure, Merkel was not able to avoid being surrounded by ministers who do not share her worldview, and instead have an Atlanticist orientation. The two German politicians who are prime candidates for this betrayal of Merkel are Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (or AKK), the current Defense Minister and chairwoman of CDU who ousted Merkel from that post in 2018, and Heiko Maas, the Foreign Minister. Both of them have been critical of North Stream 2 in the past, have espoused hard-line anti-Russia and pro-US views to the point of advocating the dispatch of German warships to the South China Sea, and who moreover control the relevant entities in the investigation of the Navalny “poisoning”. Maas, for his part, has been speaking in terms of ultimatums leveled at Russia, demanding that it explain how Navalny was poisoned with Novichok in Russia and prove its innocence, a task that he surely knows is impossible to fulfill. It is not difficult to imagine that as soon as the Navalny saga unfolded, Maas and AKK worked behind the scenes to have Navalny flown to Germany as soon as possible, with a German intelligence agent introducing a tiny dose of cholinesterase inhibitors, possibly Novichok-related ones, upon his arrival in Germany. When Charite apparently refused to play ball and limited itself to an inconclusive “cholinesterase inhibitor” funding, the matter was promptly handed over to AKK’s Bundeswehr lab where the desired result was duly produced.
https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/6867604717028117766?lang=en-GB
Since Germany is refusing to release the results of Bundeswehr’s testing or to have Navalny re-examined by Russian or international doctors and compare the results of German and Russian analyses (with Merkel tellingly unable to compel her institutions to actually participate in an effort that would almost certainly exonerate Russia), one can now predict that Russia will fail to “convince” AKK and Maas of its innocence, with the outcome being termination of North Stream 2, “coronation” of AKK as the next Chancellor of Germany, and a crackdown on political parties like AfD and Die Linke who have been vocal in questioning the official narrative. Indeed, with the German military and intelligence services playing an active “behind the scenes” role in German politics, one cannot even rule out a “Reichstag fire” style scenario.
Lessons Learned and Crises to Come
The Russian government clearly miscalculated in allowing Navalny to go to Germany, expecting that Angela Merkel still had sufficient political pull to override her hawkish entourage and force a transparent investigation that would reveal the nature of Navalny’s illness. The more appropriate course of action would have been to keep Navalny in Omsk and invite German doctors to perform analyses of Navalny’s blood samples right there in Omsk, where there was no danger of chain-of-custody violation by third parties determined to plant evidence pointing at Npvichok.
But what is even more worrisome is that Western intelligence services, apparently after being burned by the inept staging of the Douma false flag, have found an almost surefire way to stage “Novichok” false flags. From now on literally every loss of consciousness by a prominent figure can be transformed into an international scandal, as long as there is a compliant NATO biochemical warfare laboratory willing to deliver the required diagnosis, without ever having to reveal how it reached that conclusion. We should expect this tactic will be used many times in the future.
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