Vladimir Putin approved the murder of Alexei Navalny “as a birthday gift for Russia’s top criminal investigator,” a leading independent media outlet claimed today.
According to the respected independent media outlet SOTA, the Russian president allegedly authorized the assassination of prominent Russian opposition leader, 47, of his university classmate Alexander Bastrykin.
The outlet claimed that Navalny was gradually poisoned after Putin gave the personal approval as a “gift” for Bastrykin’s 70th birthday on August 27, 2023. In the event, Navalny died almost six months later.
Bastrykin, the long-time head of the Russian Investigative Committee, seen by some as an equivalent of the FBI, had a “personal grudge” against Navalny, according to the respected independent media outlet SOTA.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in Navalny’s death and today claimed that he had died from “sudden death syndrome” after returning from a walk through the penal colony where he was held in Kharp, Russia.
Alexei Navalny and his wife Yulia Navalnaya pose together for a photograph in September 2020
Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles Friday as he visits a forge in Chelyabinsk, Russia.
The head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, photographed in Moscow in June 2023.
SOTA claimed that after Navalny’s arrest, “Bastrykin sought Putin’s approval to kill Navalny in the (penal) colony, eventually enlisting the support of the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, Arkady Gostev.”
Bastrykin had harassed Navalny for years with false prosecutions, according to Western governments and independent analysts.
He also opened criminal cases against Navalny’s lawyers, considered politically motivated by the Russian opposition.
“In August 2023, Vladimir Putin authorized the slow poisoning of Alexei Navalny as a ‘gift’ for Bastrykin’s 70th birthday,” SOTA reported without providing evidence.
“According to the original plan, the politician was supposed to die from cardiovascular problems before the end of 2023. But the death did not occur until February 16.”
SOTA reported that Navalny had expressed concern to his team that “in his opinion, he was receiving some kind of poison.”
‘According to the biochemist with whom SOTA spoke, if the information about the blood clot that caused Navalny’s death is correct, we could be talking about any clotting substance that, given the lack of water in the (penal) colony and the regime of detention torture, inevitably led to a thickening of the blood and, as a result, death,” the independent media outlet reported.
Navalny was moved to the remote penal colony about 1,900 miles northeast of Moscow, where temperatures can reach -30C, just a few weeks ago in December.
His team expressed concern that they had not been in contact with him for weeks and did not know where he was until he broke his silence on Boxing Day last year.
‘Do not worry about me. I’m fine. “I’m totally relieved to have finally made it,” Navalny wrote on In transit.
The anti-corruption activist was last seen via video link during a court hearing on Thursday.
Dressed in the black prison uniform, he seemed to be in good spirits: his trademark humor was showing again.
“Your Honor, I will send you my personal account number so you can use your enormous salary as a federal judge to ‘warm up’ my personal account, because I am running out of money,” he said.
State media reported that he raised no health complaints during the session.
His mother said she had seen her son in the prison colony on Monday. At that time, she said: “He was alive, healthy, happy.”
Navalny came to international attention in 2020 when it was discovered that he had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent while returning from a corruption investigation in Siberia.
The Kremlin denied any involvement, but the US, UK and EU imposed sanctions on Russian officials at the time.
Navalny eventually recovered thanks to German doctors after Putin allowed the ailing politician to be flown to the West.
Despite the assassination attempt, Navalny voluntarily returned to Russia, where he was immediately imprisoned, although he could have remained safe in the West.
Lyudmila Navalnaya, mother of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and lawyer Vasily Dubkov arrive at the regional department of the Russian Investigative Committee in the town of Salekhard in the Yamal-Nenets region, Russia, February 17, 2024 .
Navalny appears via video link from the Arctic penal colony where he was found dead on January 11, 2024.
The IK-3 prison colony in Kharp where Navalny was reported dead after collapsing on Friday