The wildest tale of Putin is from Navalny, not Donald Trump
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The wildest tale of Putin is from Navalny, not Donald Trump
Poisonous underwear, 57 degrees below and thousands of arrests
Writer’s note: This post was originally published on Medium’s “We Need to Talk” on January 27, 2021. He’s still doubling down though. This month (August 2023), he called on his supporters and opposition voters to participate in the Russian elections set to take place in September 2023 and to vote “for any candidate against United Russia.” The news in Ukraine is startling and depressing.
Editor’s note: His wife was detained on January 31, 2020, and his brother was placed under house arrest for two months on the last week of January.
There are people who think they’re really about “that life” — and then there are those who prove they are. In one of the most bizarre world news stories I’ve been following since August 2020 story, Alexey Navalny proves exactly what happens when someone becomes the enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
These two have been mortal enemies for so long that a Federal Security Service (FSB) toxins team of approximately six to 10 agents trailed Navalny for more than three years — all because Navalny kept exposing corruption and campaigning against the United Russia party for the past decade. Stalking Navalny while he traveled, someone on this team (allegedly) went as far as breaking into his hotel room and putting granular forms of toxins into Navalny’s underwear.
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Sneaky, they may be. Bright, not so much. Konstantin Kudryavtsev (one of the alleged participants) was tricked into talking to Navalny himself for 45 minutes— about how he poisoned him — believing that he was talking to the official agency that ordered the poisoning. How someone manages to talk to a person for 45 minutes after trailing them but never thinks something is “off” about the conversation is beyond me, but he did tell Navalny he had coronavirus and had been self-isolating. Still though, Navalny, who ended up in a coma once the poison sunk into his skin, primarily blames Putin for the toxin placement.
Putin, on the other hand, laughed about the idea of killing him, stating, “If there was such a desire, it would have been done.”
Labs in Germany, France and Sweden, and tests by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, confirmed that Navalny was exposed to a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent. Still Putin claims the United States is instigating the claims and is more focused on President Biden extending the last remaining U.S.-Russian arms control pact. (It is supposed to expire next month.)
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To add insult to injury, Navalny — the same man who was poisoned simply from wearing his own underwear — returned from Berlin (where he was flown to for treatment and recovery) and was arrested as soon as he came back to Moscow on Sun., Jan. 17 — five months after the poisoning. According to authorities, the 30-day lockup is because his stay in Germany violated the terms of a 2014 criminal conviction. In February, he heads back to court to find out if he should go to prison for 3.5 years more due to the 2014 case (accusations of fraud and money laundering that Navalny says are made-up and politically motivated).
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Somewhere between impressive and astonishing, supporters for Navalny came out in droves — 15,000 demonstrators in Moscow’s Pushkin Square showed up and were dragged off by helmeted riot officers to police buses and detention trucks. And 3,068 people were arrested in approximately 90 cities, some of which were out in -57 degree Fahrenheit. (As someone who ordered salt for snow online so I wouldn’t have to clean my car off and go get it myself, I can only imagine what it’s like in ’57 degrees below. I will never be woke enough to stand outside in a protest with weather that cold.)
This arrest wasn’t even his first one, according to the Associated Press. In between constantly getting arrested and sent to jail, he also had significant eye damage from an assailant throwing disinfectant into his face. Cats may have nine lives, but Navalny clearly has 10. While I have absolutely no respect for the man who just left the White House and want him impeached a second time, what I can say is this. Putin is clearly one of those people who you don’t want to make an enemy out of, so I fully understand why Trump stayed out of his way. For those who choose to stand up to him, you better have Navalny’s body of steel to survive — and check your undergarments regularly.
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