Oleg Tayakin was tracked down near Moscow after being named in investigation
He slammed the door and refused to talk about claims he was part of an FSB plot
FSB security service had allegedly been tracking Navalny for over three years
Undercover teams included chemical weapons experts and secret agents
There was media blackout over the bombshell claims in Moscow on Tuesday
But Putin s goddaughter Kseniya Sobchak called it absolutely brilliant work
Reuters
Bellingcat, CNN, Der Spiegel, and The Insider released a comprehensive investigation into the August assassination attempt on prominent critic Alexei Navalny.
In the course of the investigation, analysts tracked call metadata, looked at flight records, and scanned offline Russian databases to identify 15 individuals who they allege work within a hidden sub-unit of the Federal Security Service Criminalistics Institute.
As part of the investigation, CNN international correspondent Clarissa Ward traveled to Russia and knocked on the door of Oleg Tayakin, who according to the report is a senior officer in the FSB s secret chemical weapons unit.
In a video of the encounter, Tayakin can be seen locking his door and declining to answer questions. Ward, for her part, has received praise online for her adversarial, investigative journalism chops.
Hunting the Hunters: How We Identified Navalny s FSB Stalkers December 14, 2020
Today, alongside investigative partners CNN, Der Spiegel, and The Insider, we identified a long-running FSB operation to trail Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, including a number of chemical weapons experts involved in the research and development of Novichok. How did we find all of this information, and how did we verify the information? We’ll detail our investigative methodologies here, with some discussion on Russian data markets, cross-referencing data to be sure of its veracity, and other topics.
Bellingcat has previously investigated the role of a chain of Russian government-run scientific institutes in providing research into and manufacturing of nerve agent for GRU’s overseas assassination program, including the March 2018 Novichok poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal and the earlier poisoning of Bulgarian arms manufacturer Emilian Gebrev.
– were shown to have been in close communication with GRU operatives linked to the two overseas assassination attempts using military-grade toxins. SC Signal, formally engaged in developing sports nutrition drinks, appears to have focused research into nano-encapsulation; a relatively new technology that could permit a lethal toxin to be “packaged” within a veneer of another substance, allowing both obfuscation and delayed onset of the poison.
On 20 August 2020, Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalny collapsed into a coma during a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow, resulting in an emergency landing and his hospitalization in the town of Omsk. Local doctors and medical specialists flown in from Moscow claimed that they found no signs of severe poisoning. Two days later, Navalny was evacuated to the German
Alexey Navalny: CNN-Bellingcat investigation identifies Russian specialists who trailed Putin's nemesis msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.