{"id":12607,"date":"2020-09-09T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12607"},"modified":"2020-09-08T22:56:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T05:56:54","slug":"dont-expect-europe-to-hold-putin-accountable-in-navalny-poisoning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/dont-expect-europe-to-hold-putin-accountable-in-navalny-poisoning\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t expect Europe to hold Putin accountable in Navalny poisoning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following article is from my colleague, Paul Roderick Gregory, in The\u00a0Hill<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vladimir Putin<\/a> is a notorious risk-taker. Many of his ventures have paid off for him, but did his luck run out when a suspected plot to take out opposition leader Aleksei Navalny<\/a> veered wildly off course? Instead of being pronounced dead from \u201cnatural causes\u201d upon arriving on a flight to Moscow, as was purportedly planned, Navalny lies in a coma in a Berlin hospital, full of a poison accessible only to the Russian military and its Kremlin-successor security service, the FSB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here was Putin\u2019s original plan, as pieced together<\/a> by Navalny\u2019s team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navalny\u2019s political organizing in Russia\u2019s Far East and the Belarus periphery was threatening to create a real opposition force in Russia\u2019s parliament and regional governorships. Out of this concern, the Kremlin allegedly charged the FSB with poisoning Navalny in Tomsk shortly before his five-hour flight to Moscow. Most likely, Navalny ingested<\/a> the poison; otherwise his travel companions would also have been exposed, too. Navalny was supposed to die en route. This appears not to be an attempt to frighten but an intent to murder. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plan went awry when the airliner\u2019s pilot made an emergency landing in Omsk, ignoring a reported bomb threat<\/a>. Once Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk, foreign leaders raised concerns about his safety. Under intense pressure, FSB officers (reportedly dressed as civilians) allowed Navalny to be flown to Berlin, where German doctors detected poisoning with Novichok \u2013 a deadly nerve agent<\/a> used by Russian agents in other poisonings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin widely touts his \u201cpower vertical.\u201d By this, he means the extreme concentration of authority under his genial guidance. The \u201cpower vertical\u201d rules out maverick forces that, say, might poison a prominent opposition figure without approval from the vertical\u2019s top gun. In Putin\u2019s power vertical, access to the world\u2019s deadliest poisons, like Novichok, could be granted only<\/a> by the person at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article is from my colleague, Paul Roderick Gregory, in The\u00a0Hill Vladimir Putin is a notorious risk-taker. Many of his ventures have paid off for him, but did his luck run out when a suspected plot to take out opposition leader Aleksei Navalny veered wildly off course? Instead of being pronounced dead from \u201cnatural causes\u201d upon arriving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3hl","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12795,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/russias-putin-and-navalny-collide-who-will-survive\/","url_meta":{"origin":12607,"position":0},"title":"Russia’s Putin and Navalny collide; who will survive?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill To understand the events of Russian dissident\u00a0Aleksei Navalny\u2019s near-fatal poisoning and his Jan. 17 return to Russia, you must know that there are two Navalnys: Navalny No. 1 is described by Kremlin-controlled media as a CIA agent, corrupt,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12857,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/navalny-proves-too-hot-for-poisoner-putin\/","url_meta":{"origin":12607,"position":1},"title":"Navalny proves too hot for ‘poisoner Putin’","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in The Hill On Feb. 2, the Moscow City Court sentenced Russian opposition leader\u00a0Aleksei Navalny\u00a0to two years and eight months in jail. 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