ALEXEI NAVALNY TREATED AS THE NUMBER ONE STATE ENEMY IN RUSSIA

Alexei Navalny (44) is one of Russia’s most prominent opposition leaders. He was released from a Berlin hospital last month where he spent 32 days, 24 of which in intensive care, due to poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. The nerve gas Novichok is a type of chemical weapon developed by the former Soviet Union. Novichok gas causes death by disrupting communication between nerves and muscles or nerves in the brain.

Doctors treating him at a hospital in Berlin said Navalny had probably been poisoned with nerve gas, and Navalny’s team said the water bottles in the hotel room in Siberia where he had previously stayed contained traces of nerve gas similar to Novichok. Navalny himself directly blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for trying to assassinate him. European Union foreign ministers have said they will impose sanctions on Russian officials in response to an attack on Navalny. At a meeting in Luxembourg, the 27 ministers agreed to begin drafting measures based on proposals from France and Germany that Moscow was responsible for Navalny’s poisoning of Soviet-developed nerve gas Novichok.

EU diplomats told Reuters there was widespread support among the 27 foreign ministers for a freeze on travel and travel bans by several Russian GRU military intelligence agents.

Despite violent reactions from across Europe these days, Russia has decided to launch an investigation into Navalny over alleged extremism. The indictment is based on an interview that Navalny gave on April 27th to Echo of Moscow radio station (which was deleted). In an interview, Alexei Navalny accused the Vladimir Putin-led government of not caring enough for low-income citizens. Among other things, he stressed that in order not to leave 60 million people hungry, such a government should be overthrown, even by violent means. The news that Russia is charging extremism against Navalny was followed by the Macedonian media. Among the media that spread the news, and tried to discredit Navalny’s name and influence, were the following media: Opserver.mk, Kumanovskimuabeti.mk, Makpress.mk, Mia.mk, Slobodenpecat.mk, 24info.mk, Libertas.mk, A1on.mk и Info.mk.

After surviving the attack, Navalny said he believed the reason for the attack was to prevent him from returning to Russia, with Putin as the main culprit.

It is worth mentioning the fact that the nerve agent Novichok was used in the attempt to neutralize Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia, which took place on March 4th, 2018 in Salisbury, England. Sergei Skripal is a retired Russian military intelligence colonel who was sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison on charges of spying for Britain. He was convicted and later pardoned for sharing the identities of Russian secret agents in Europe with the British Secret Service (MI6). As in the case of Skripal, so in that of Navalny, Russia has denied any connection. The use of chemical poisons is strictly forbidden, and the frequency of such occurrences provokes serious reactions from the western and progressive world. It remains to be seen what the consequences will be for Russia, which is the prime suspect in these cases.