What investigation?

Russian state media remains silent following report linking Navalny’s poisoning to the FSB

A day has passed since Bellingcat and The Insider released a joint investigation, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, implicating the Russian FSB in the near-lethal poisoning of opposition figure Alexey Navalny in Tomsk this summer. The story has been making headlines around the world ever since it came out — here’s what Russian state media and officials have had to say on the topic, in as much detail as possible.

TASS: Nothing.

RIA Novosti:One article about the fact that in an interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny said that he plans to return to Russia (the article contains no mention of the investigation).

Interfax:One article about the fact that in an interview with Ekho Moskvy, Navalny said that he would appeal to Russia’s law enforcement agencies “in connection with the publications in the media about the new circumstances [surrounding] his poisoning” (this article contained a brief mention of the investigation, “which claims that several FSB officers were involved in the poisoning”).

Perviy Kanal: Nothing.

Rossiya 1: Nothing.

NTV: Nothing.

The Kremlin: Nothing. In fact, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has cancelled his daily press briefings with journalists for the next two days (ostensibly due to the fact that Putin is set to hold his annual press conference on Thursday, December 17).

Is it possible that Russian state media isn’t reporting on the article because no one is interested? That’s unlikely. On his YouTube channel, Alexey Navalny released a video about the investigation titled “Case solved. I know everyone who tried to kill me” — it gained more than six million views in 24 hours. Leading international media outlets have also reported on the investigation, including the BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais, South China Morning Post, Anadolu, Deutsche Welle, and many others.

You can read Meduza’s summary of the investigation here.

Text by Grigory Levchenko

Translation by Eilish Hart

Cover photo: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Scanpix / LETA