In October, we appealed to the UN to request an inquiry into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Even then, it was clear that no criminal case would be opened in Russia. Half a year later, everything is exactly as we expected: there is still no case, Putin is lying when he says, “If they had wanted to kill him, they would have finished the job,” and Lavrov is urging the whole world to read “Dr. Kozak’s letter.” In other words, there is total denial at every level, along with occasional vague threats to withdraw from the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons). The Kremlin is hoping that time will pass and everyone will forget about the poisoning—especially now that Navalny is in prison and other, more urgent issues have emerged in connection with that.
However, the UN employs people whose memories are not so short, and yesterday they published the results of their inquiry. You can read their report here.
Agnès Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, and Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, concluded that the Russian authorities were highly likely involved in the poisoning of Alexei with Novichok.
The official letter, which set out the evidence pointing to this conclusion, was sent to the Russian authorities back in December 2020. They were given 60 days to respond, but no reply ever came, so once the deadline expired, the report was published.
The Special Rapporteurs are calling for an urgent international investigation: “Given the inadequate response of the Russian authorities, the use of a banned chemical weapon, and the clear pattern of attempted targeted killings, we believe that an international investigation must be launched as a matter of urgency in order to establish the facts and clarify all the circumstances surrounding Navalny’s poisoning. This investigation is especially important now, when Navalny has been detained by the Russian government and remains under its control.”
The UN also called for Navalny’s immediate release.
This matters, and it must not be forgotten. In Russia, no case has ever been opened over the attempted murder of Alexei. The Tomsk transport police have been “conducting a preliminary check” for six months already. CCTV footage from the Tomsk hotel disappeared and was never recovered. Alexei’s clothes—which obviously contained traces of Novichok, and which Kudryavtsev, an inept FSB (Federal Security Service) operative, went to wash—have still not been returned. By putting forward one crazier explanation after another—from Raffaello chocolates to pancreatitis—Russian propagandists and officials hope they can confuse everyone and bury what happened.
We must not let them get away with it. The investigation must be carried out, and everyone involved must be held accountable.