Stunning Investigation Finds Russia Tried to Kill Politician Alexey Navalny With a Poisoned Negroni
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A Bellingcat investigation into the attempted killing of Alexey Navalny revealed a stunning new element of the scandal: Russia tried to off the politician with a poisoned Negroni.
It all began when Navalny, a prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, ordered a Bloody Mary at the Xander Hotel with his team in Tomsk, Russia. The bartender, however, claimed that they did not have the necessary ingredients and suggested a Negroni instead.
An already questionable suggestion considering the two drinks have essentially nothing in common, but Navalny accepted anyway.
Luckily for the Kremlin critic, the bartender must have botched the drink’s crucial ratio, as Navalny labeled the cocktail “the most disgusting thing I’ve had in my life” — and could only manage to have one sip.
“About 15 minutes later he left the party and headed for his room,” the investigation read, later noting that the politician did not fall ill until he was on a plane leaving Moscow the next day.
It’s unclear if Navalny thought the drink tasted so horrible because of its classic elements or due to the killer secret ingredient, but either way, his rejection of the cocktail saved his life.
Prior to the investigation, Kira Yarmysh, the politician’s spokeswoman, said in a tweet that Navalny was likely poisoned by something mixed into his tea considering it was the only thing he drank the day he collapsed.
CNN partnered with Bellingcat amid the investigation, during which the network’s chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward uncovered some other, and perhaps more newsworthy, revelations.
Ward revealed that a secret team working for Russia’s FSB spy agency poisoned Navalny in August after they had been trailing him for years. The politician was shocked and terrified to discover that the team had been on more than 30 trips with him, considering he did not recognize any of them.
Navalny additionally revealed that his wife had fallen incredibly ill while the two were on vacation, but neither knew what was wrong at the time. Now, the politician is certain it was another attempted killing.
Watch above, via CNN.
