Navalny poisoning“Weapon of Terror”: A Novichok Creator Tells How Navalny Case Differs from the Skripal Attack
Medical specialists in Germany have determined that Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is being treated in a hospital in Berlin after falling ill on 20 August on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, was poisoned with a form of the Soviet-developed nerve agent Novichok. The toxin found in Navalny is from the same group of poisons as the one used in the March 2018 poisoning of former Soviet intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the English city of Salisbury. Both Skripals survived the attack and were released after spending weeks in the hospital.
Medical specialists in Germany have determined that Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is being treated in a hospital in Berlin after falling ill on 20 August on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, was poisoned with a form of the Soviet-developed nerve agent Novichok.
The toxin found in Navalny is from the same group of poisons as the one used in the March 2018 poisoning of former Soviet intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the English city of Salisbury. Both Skripals survived the attack and were released after spending weeks in the hospital.
RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Mark Krutov spoke with Soviet and Russian chemist Vil Mirzayanov about the two incidents. Mirzayanov worked from 1965 until 1992 at the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology, which was run by the military and the KGB. He was part of the team that developed the Novichok nerve agent in the early 1970s. When he left the institute in 1992, he was the first person to speak publicly of the Novichok group of toxins.
Mark Krutov: The Novichok that was used in Great Britain caused considerable environmental harm. We all remember seeing emergency workers in hazardous-materials gear working at the places where Sergei and Yulia Skripal had been. One resident of Salisbury died after coming into contact with a perfume bottle containing traces of Novichok. There was talk that whole buildings might have to be evacuated and destroyed. Why did nothing like this happen in Aleksei Navalny’s case?
Vil Mirzayanov: The key was the method used. Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned by coming into contact with Novichok through the skin…. In Navalny’s case, most likely, the Novichok entered his system through the digestive tract. I believe that in this case, a different version of Novichok was used, one with the code name A-261. Instead of a substance from the amidine group, they attached [crystalline] guanidine to the Novichok molecule. This was done by the creator of Novichok, Pyotr Kirpichev. For one thing, this enabled them to increase the toxicity of the agent by about 10 times compared to that of the substance used in Salisbury. Also, it is a solid substance. It can be mixed with sugar or added into a packet with tea. You only need a few milligrams to kill someone.
