A leaked report into Alexei Navalny’s death provides ‘compelling evidence’ that he was poisoned, according to the author of a best-selling book about the opposition leader.
John Sweeney said a Russian detective had recorded how Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic vomited and went into convulsions shortly before his death a year ago today.
The report was filed by a detective logging Navalny’s possessions at a harsh penal colony in the Arctic Circle where he was being held on what were widely considered to be politically motivated charges.
The 47-year-old’s supporters believe he was murdered and that Moscow covered up the crime, including by removing the references to the symptoms noted by the detective.
‘There’s no question that Alexei Navalny was poisoned,’ Sweeney told Metro.
‘A detective, Alexander Varapaev, bagged all of Navalny’s stuff after his death, including a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, lots of pills, a breathing mask for his asthma, loo roll and clothes and coats.
‘The last items Varapaev logged are swabs and specs of vomit.
‘They never made it into the official list of his possessions. Somebody deletes the references to the vomit.
‘Then he writes a report saying Navalny was vomiting and was suffering from severe abdominal pain and convulsions and loses consciousness.
‘That is all compelling evidence that he was poisoned.’
The journalist writes in the latest edition of his book Murder in the Gulag about the life and death of Navalny that the references were removed, ‘almost as if someone high up in the Kremlin didn’t want people to know that [Putin] had had Navalny poisoned.’
Unearthed by Russian investigative journalist Roman Dobrokhotov of The Insider media outlet, the report is part of what Sweeney describes in his book as ‘Cluedo cards’ laid out for all to see.
The activist’s death while serving a 19-year sentence followed a string of murders including that of Alexander Litvinenko, a former spy turned Kremlin critic who was poisoned by radioactive Polonium in London, and the Salisbury assassination attempt against Russian dissident Sergei Skripal with nerve agent Novichock.
The latter hit claimed the life of Dawn Sturgess.
In both cases, Russian hitmen working for Putin’s regime were identified by the UK authorities as being to blame. Russia has denied being involved in the murders.
‘We can’t prove Novichok was used because the deal for Navalny’s funeral was that the family would only be allowed the body if no medical tests were carried out,’ Sweeney said.
‘It’s not right but that’s the horrible deal his mother ended up accepting. This is compelling evidence that Navalny was poisoned and I would argue that the only person who has the power to poison the leader of the opposition in one of the most secure prisons in the whole country is the ruler, Vladimir Putin.’
In August 2020, Navalny narrowly survived being poisoned with Novichok, which led to him falling ill on a flight between Siberia and Moscow and going into a coma.
He was imprisoned the following year and subjected to brutal and inhumane treatment in the Russian penal system, with his last stop being the so-called ‘Polar Wolf’ prison in Kharp, northern Russia, about 1,900 km north-east of Moscow.
Navalny spent a total of 283 days in a punishment cell on ‘trumped-up pretexts’ up until his death, according to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) he founded.
The Russian prison service said in a statement released at the time that Navalny ‘felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness.’
In March, 2024, Russian spy chief Sergei Naryshkin claimed said that the prisoner had died of natural causes but did not go into details.
The ACF has described Navalny’s death as ‘murder’ and accused Moscow of trying to cover up the crime.
But the opposition leader’s voice has not been silenced.
The Terminator 2 melody from his favourite film was played as his coffin was lowed into the ground at a cemetery in Moscow, with the rebel’s last joke of ‘I’ll be back’ being aimed at Putin’s ‘neurosis’, according to Sweeney.
While there is no clear challenge to the Russian president’s rule, the Ukraine war has led to huge losses among Moscow’s forces and the first annexation of Russian territory since World War Two.
‘At the moment it looks incredibly bleak but then at the end of Terminator 2 the machine chooses to be destroyed to prevent the system from wiping out humanity,’ Sweeney said.
‘The film sent out the message that if you can create a machine with empathy, it is not our enemy.
‘Navalny was not a saint, he had a brush with the far right between 2000 and 2010 and it’s true that at that point he was an arrogant prick and a bit of an imperialist, but towards the end he wasn’t.
‘If anyone doubts me, I would say watch the wonderful documentary in Navalny’s name which won an Oscar.
‘It shows how he recovered from the hideous assassination attempt by poison to turn the tables on the Russian police state in a way that was brilliant and really funny.
‘Like Claus Von Stauffenberg, the German army officer who attempted to kill Hitler, Navalny provides a symbol of resistance and he reminds people that there is an alternative in a country run through tyranny.
‘Navalny didn’t want to kill Putin, he wanted to hold him to democratic account. He stood for a place which respects the rule of law, common decency and democracy.
‘All of those things are important and why it is right for us to raise a glass to him on the first anniversary of his death.’
Navalny’s ‘final letter to the world’
At times, Alexei Navalny responded to his brutal treatment by the Russian state with defiant humour.
But after being imprisoned in a Russian penal colony, he wrote: ”I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here.’
‘There will not be anybody to say goodbye to … All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren.’
In his memoir. Patriot, he writes that he was ‘trying to do everything I can from here to put an end to authoritarianism (or, more modestly, to contribute to ending it).’
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf has described the book as Navalny’s ‘final letter to the world.’
Navalny’s spirit can be seen elsewhere in his explanation of why he refused to be intimidated by the Kremlin.
He said: ‘I don’t understand this position. First of all, it’s boring. Second of all, forgive me if this sounds pompous, but it’s better to die standing
up than to stay alive on your knees.’
Sweeney, who famously ‘doorstepped’ Vladimir Putin in Siberia while working for the BBC, has taken heart from the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
‘Putin’s war is in trouble,’ he said. ‘My brilliant and brave friends in the Ukrainian Army went into Kursk six months ago and they are still there.
‘It shows that Putin does not possess an all-powerful army.
‘They have lost an awful lot of people, an awful lot of blood and an awful lot of treasure. In the east the Ukrainians are losing little by little but Ukraine is an enormous country and as far as Kursk is concerned the Russians haven’t got it back.
‘That tells you that the Ukrainians are brave and good.
‘We haven’t given them enough stuff to do the job and that’s a terrible failing on our part. However, the Ukrainians are still in the game.
‘What could make a difference is if Russian people are able to mass and lose their fear.
‘As my Russian friend Andrei Soldatov, who’s now exiled in London, says, “we’re all afraid of Stalin’s secret police.”
‘If they lose that kind of ancestral fear and look at the objective reality, then I think Putin’s in trouble.
‘I was very heartened to see his crony in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, get knocked off his perch and although I am an old geezer I hope one day I will see him fall and if I do I will raise a glass of proper Russian vodka to my friend, Alexei Navalny.’
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has also envisaged a Russia without Putin as she continues his work.
Speaking in London last October to promote her husband’s autobiography, Patriot, she said that it ‘could take a very, very long time’ or it could ‘happen tomorrow — like everything happens in Russia.’
Yulia has also said that when the time is right, she will run for the Russian presidency in free and fair elections.
She has continued her work from outside her homeland, where a court in Moscow has issued an arrest warrant against her on extremism charges.
Responding on X, she wrote: ‘When you write about this, please do not forget to write the main thing: Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal. His place is in prison, and not somewhere in The Hague, in a cosy cell with a TV, but in Russia – in the same colony and the same two-by-three-metre cell in which he killed Alexei.’
Navalny’s supporters all over the world are due to hold memorial events today, including across the UK.
The ACF plans to hold a live broadcast to reflect his work, honour his memory and stand in solidarity.
The foundation said: ‘We must show that Alexei Navalny will never be forgotten, that we will never forgive, and that we will continue the fight he gave his life for.’
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Murder in the Gulag – the Explosive Account of How Putin Poisoned Alexei Navalny by John Sweeney is priced £12.99 by Headline Press
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