How the Poisoning of Alexey Navalny Turned Merkel Against Putin
What Western officials describe as a botched attempt to kill a leading Kremlin critic has triggered a new downward spiral in Russia’s ties with Europe.
Alexey Navalny, centre, surrounded by members of his team, at a rally to support political prisoners in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 29, 2019.
Photographer: Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo
Alexey Navalny’s team was at breakfast in the Siberian city of Tomsk when they received word that the opposition leader had fallen violently ill on his flight home to Moscow.
The activists raced to the room in the Xander hotel he’d left hours before and scrambled to collect evidence. “It was obvious to us that Navalny hadn’t just gotten a bit sick,” they recalled in an Instagram post Thursday. “We decided to take everything that might be of use.”