“Navalny was followed by FSB agents before he fell ill” | Abroad

Before Navalny suddenly became very ill on Thursday morning on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, he is said to have been followed by plainclothes agents from the FSB security service. He was also monitored with security cameras.

Intelligence sources are said to have shared extensively with Moskovsky Komsolets all the details of the Kremlin critic’s journey for the alleged poisoning. The newspaper reports, among other things, how many rooms Navalny’s employees had booked in a local hotel and that Navalny decided not to sleep in the room reserved in his name. A friend of Navalny’s rented an apartment for him, but it was discovered by the police when one of Navalny’s supporters ordered sushi for that address.

Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmish responded to the story via Twitter. “The scale of surveillance doesn’t surprise me at all,” she wrote. “What does surprise me is that intelligence sources are not afraid to tell this.”

The paper further reports that intelligence sources say the shadowing of Navalny has not revealed any suspicious contacts that could explain his sudden illness. The sources believe that if Navalny was poisoned, the poisoning may have taken place at the airport or on the plane. Test results of samples taken by police at places where Navalny was with his team are still pending. The first results are expected on Monday. The results of tests on radioactive material will be released later next week, according to the newspaper. Whether these will be made public is not yet clear.

Navalny was transferred by plane to Berlin on Saturday for treatment, where he was admitted to Charité hospital. That has not yet released a statement about his condition. This is “very worrying,” said the spokesman for the organization that arranged the ambulance flight to Germany.

–