Putin says if Russia wanted to kill opposition leader Navalny, it would have 'finished' the job

By Dilip -

NB: The Russian head of state speaks like a cheap street thug. The USSR may have faded away, but the KGB lives on. He and his chum in the White House have a lot in common: a mafia mentality. DS   

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Thursday that opposition politician Alexey Navalny "is enjoying the support of the US special services," adding that if Russian special services had wanted to kill him they would have "finished it." Putin's comments came in response to a question at his annual press conference following an investigation by the investigative group Bellingcat and CNN, published Monday, which uncovered evidence that Russia's Federal Security Service (the FSB) formed an elite team specializing in nerve agents that trailed Navalny for years.

Navalny was poisoned with the toxin Novichok in August and nearly died. After initial treatment in Omsk, Siberia, he was taken to a clinic in Berlin. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in his poisoning.In his first comments on the investigation, Putin didn't dispute any details of the findings but essentially confirmed that FSB agents did indeed trail Navalny….

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/17/europe/putin-annual-press-conference-intl/index.html

Solidarity with Memorial: Russia’s most prominent civil rights group in danger

The Crises of Party Culture: by Yang Guang

China’s Brave Underground Journal - Remembrance

Book Review: Inside the Stalin Archives, by Johnathan Brent (2009) // Books from "Annals of Communism Series", Yale University Press

Alec Luhn - Gulag grave hunter unearths uncomfortable truths in Russia

Book review - Linda Grant on Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate

Alexandre Koyré The Political Function of the Modern Lie

A Final Warning by George Orwell


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