German police have opened an investigation into the possible poisoning of two Russian exiles who attended a meeting of dissidents in Berlin in April, after the German newspaper Die Welt collected this information published by the Russian investigative outlet Agentsvo. The two women, a journalist who recently left Russia and an activist who has lived in Washington for ten years, felt bad in the days surrounding an event that included a conference by Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the German capital, held on 29 and April 30.
As Agentsvo explains, both women reported symptoms suggesting possible poisoning. The journalist – whose name has not been made public – felt ill during the event, but she stated that perhaps the symptoms had started earlier. According to another source, as the ailment persisted, she went to the Berlin Charité hospital, the same one where the Russian opponent Aléxei Navalni was admitted in August 2020, who had been poisoned with a Novichok-type nerve agent. The journalist did not want to reveal to Agentsvo what symptoms she suffered or what treatment she received.
The other affected is Natalia Arno, president of the NGO Free Russia Foundation, based in the United States. Arno explained on May 16 on Facebook that the “first strange symptoms” appeared in Berlin, and worsened in Prague, the next leg of his trip, where he participated in public meetings about Russia, the war and Vladimir Putin, and experienced “strange symptoms”. and “sharp painsâ€.
Upon returning to the hotel, he found the door to his room ajar and perceived “a strange, acrid smell of cheap perfume.” The symptoms worsened with “strong numbness” during the flight back to the United States. She had to receive medical attention. “There are suspicions that I have been poisoned with a nerve agent,” she said.
Navalni’s poisoning in 2020 occurred with a Novichok-type nerve agent, as certified by different Western laboratories. Moscow has always denied having anything to do with it. Now cured, Navalni voluntarily returned to Russia in January 2021, was arrested and has been in prison ever since.
The Novichok was also used in the 2018 assassination attempt on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury. The case further strained the already tense relations between London and Moscow after the death in 2006 in the British capital of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by polonium radiation.
