These poisonings must stop now

The German government has confirmed what was widely feared: prominent Russian opposition figure and critic of Kremlin Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a variant of Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow late last month and quickly slipped into a coma. There was apprehension then that he had been poisoned. Toxicological tests by a German military lab have now claimed “unequivocal proof” that Navalny was poisoned. An outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny has been accusing the government of "sucking the blood out of Russia." He has led numerous mass protests, too. In 2018, he sought to challenge Putin in the presidential election but was prevented from contesting. Clearly, the Kremlin is wary of Navalny. This is not the first time that an attempt has been made on his life; he has been attacked with toxic agents in the past as well. Nor is this the first time that Novichok has been used to silence Russians who have fallen out with Putin. This nerve agent was used to poison former KGB spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in a 2018 attack in Salisbury in Britain.

Russia under Putin has witnessed a rising number of murders of human rights activists, opposition politicians and journalists. Many defectors to the West have been pursued in foreign lands and murdered, most of them by poisoning, with the killers even putting foreign populations at risk. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy turned whistle-blower, was poisoned in 2006 with the highly toxic isotope Polonium-210. Putin’s critics see his hand in many of these murders. But even if these were not masterminded by Putin but carried out on the orders of Russian security forces, intelligence agencies or the criminal mafia, Putin cannot escape responsibility for these murders. There have been one too many of these murders, and his government has not bothered to even probe any of them. At the least, Putin has tacitly encouraged the silencing of his critics.

It is imperative that the international community carries out an objective investigation into the poisoning of Navalny. Who poisoned him and why and on whose orders? Findings backed by solid evidence must be made public. Many governments and leaders will find it expedient to simply voice criticism of the Kremlin and then avoid following up with further action. The poisoning and murder of Kremlin critics and defectors to the West has been going on for too long. It must be stopped now.