Alexei Navalny poisoned with negroni after being ‘tailed by hit squad’

Reports say the FSB squad had been tracking Navalny since 2017

Alexei Navalny speaks with journalists during a rally
(Image credit: Maxim Zemeyez/AFP via Getty Images)

Russian intelligence agents followed Alexei Navalny for years before poisoning him with the nerve agent novichok in August, it has been revealed.

Citing “voluminous” telecoms and travel data, Bellingcat reports that the FSB squad had been tailing Navalny since 2017, around the same time that he announced that he would run for president against Putin.

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The investigative news site said it believes the August poisoning had been approved “at the highest echelons of the Kremlin”, appearing to confirm Navalny’s claim that Putin had ordered the attempted assassination.

The investigation website found that three men travelled with the opposition figure to Tomsk, where he was eventually poisoned. It names the three men as doctors Alexey Alexandrov and Ivan Osipov, and Vladimir Panyaev.

The report, conducted with the assistance of CNN and German magazine der Spiegel, also suggests that the method of poisoning may have been a cocktail ordered by Navalny in Tomsk.

The activist is reported to have ordered a Bloody Mary while meeting colleagues for a drink in his hotel, but having been informed that the hotel did not have the ingredients, opted for a negroni at the suggestion of the bartender. He later told an interviewer that it “tasted like the most disgusting thing I’ve had in my life”. He fell ill the next morning.

Russia’s response… is almost certain to follow the familiar pattern of denial, mockery and often absurd attempts at obfuscation,” writes The Times’ Moscow correspondent Marc Bennetts. And while it may see the UK and EU “increase sanctions on Russia”, it is “unlikely to have much impact on Putin’s reputation” within the country, he adds.

Joe Evans is the world news editor at TheWeek.co.uk. He joined the team in 2019 and held roles including deputy news editor and acting news editor before moving into his current position in early 2021. He is a regular panellist on The Week Unwrapped podcast, discussing politics and foreign affairs. 

Before joining The Week, he worked as a freelance journalist covering the UK and Ireland for German newspapers and magazines. A series of features on Brexit and the Irish border got him nominated for the Hostwriter Prize in 2019. Prior to settling down in London, he lived and worked in Cambodia, where he ran communications for a non-governmental organisation and worked as a journalist covering Southeast Asia. He has a master’s degree in journalism from City, University of London, and before that studied English Literature at the University of Manchester.