DISINFO: The "poisoning of Navalny" is likely a project for self-promoting
SUMMARY
Most likely, the “poisoning of Navalny” is one of [Navalny’s] projects aimed at both self-promotion and gaining support from the West, which has now received a new argument for imposing further sanctions against Moscow.
RESPONSE
This message is a conspiracy theory advancing recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. A prominent Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny fell ill during a flight and the plane had to make an emergency landing in Omsk, where doctors said he was in a coma and they were trying to save his life. Since then he has been transferred to Berlin and is receiving treatment at Berlin’s Charite Hospital. The German federal government said that toxicological tests provided “unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group” in the blood samples of Alexei Navalny. The European Union condemned the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in the strongest possible terms. See related disinformation cases alleging that the West will falsely accuse Russia of poisoning Navalny as with Skripal and Litvinenko; the West has an interest in the death of Navalny to launch a new wave of sanctions against Russia; political scandal in Austria was a CIA operation to stop the construction of Nord Stream 2.