OPCW confirms that Navalny was poisoned with a toxin resembling Novichok not included under its existing bans
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed that Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok-type toxin.
The OPCW noted that the particular cholinesterase inhibitor used to poison Navalny is not formally included on its list of banned substances. However, its structural composition resembles four toxic chemicals that were banned by the organization in November 2019.
In response to the OPCW’s conclusions, Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov made the following comment:
“What does ‘structurally similar but different’ mean? What it means is a new substance in the ’Novichok’ family. […] That is, Russia can no longer even say ‘well there were just bottles of Novichok lying around in storage since the 1980s, we can’t keep track of them.’ No, today’s OPCW press release actually confirms that now, in 2020, Russia has an active program to develop new chemical warfare agents of the Novichok class, the wildest violation of any and all international norms and conventions imaginable.”
The German outlets Der Spiegel and Der Zeit previously reported that their sources claimed Navalny had been poisoned with a new, more deadly type of Novchik-class nerve agent.
Read more about Navalny’s poisoning
- Technical assistance How Navalny’s poisoning could prompt the OPCW to carry out an emergency inspection in Russia
- Highly toxic, but unreliable ‘Meduza’ answers key questions about Novichok-type nerve agent poisoning
- ‘There are better poisons if you really want to kill someone’ The chemical weapons expert who led the OPCW’s mission to Salisbury after the Novichok attack on the Skripals explains Alexey Navalny’s situation
- Finding the poison: Dr. Marc-Michael Blum explains the analytical chemistry needed to identify nerve agents in patients
Navalny’s poisoning
On August 20, Alexey Navalny became violently ill aboard a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. Pilots made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was hospitalized and immediately placed in a medically induced coma. Two days later, he was transferred to Berlin for treatment. German specialists later concluded that he had been exposed to a Novichok-class nerve agent. Russian officials maintain that they have no evidence that Navalny was poisoned. He regained consciousness on September 7 and was discharged from the hospital on September 22. His full rehabilitation is expected to take several more weeks.