Latest information has emerged on Thursday regarding the poisoning of Russia’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. A video posted on Navalny’s Instagram account showed members of his team searching his hotel room in Tomsk, an hour after they learned that he had fallen gravely ill on a domestic flight in Russia. His team had carefully gathered everything that might be useful in providing clues. Navalny’s colleagues disclosed that recent tests showed traces of the Novichok nerve agent on a water bottle from his hotel room, contrary to what was previously suspected that he was poisoned with a cup of tea that he drank at the Tomsk airport. The toxic nerve agent is said to be developed by the Soviet military but Russia denies this.
Read: Berlin Hospital Declares Russian Opposition Leader was Poisoned
CBS News: Chemical weapons expert Hamish DeBretton Gordon explained that Novichok is so deadly, just coming into contact with “a single molecule” can prove fatal
CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reports that Navalny’s team claim a German lab has confirmed that traces of a highly toxic Novichok nerve agent were detected on the water bottle found in the room.
Navalny’s associates previously said they believed he was likely poisoned with a cup of tea at an airport in the country’s northern Siberia region, before boarding the flight to Moscow.
But chemical weapons expert Hamish DeBretton Gordon, told CBS News that the tea-at-the-airport theory always seemed unlikely.
“Putting it on a water bottle would ensure that Navalny would poison himself,” said de Bretton-Gordon, explaining that Novichok is so deadly, just coming into contact with “a single molecule” can prove fatal.
Reuters: “Now we understand: it was done before he left his hotel room to go to the airport.”
According to Reuters, the video of the abandoned hotel room shows two water bottles on a desk, and another on a bedside table. Navalny’s team, wearing protective gloves, are seen placing items into blue plastic bags.
A post said that, “Two weeks later, a German laboratory found traces of Novichok precisely on the bottle of water from the Tomsk hotel room. And then more laboratories that took analyses from Alexei confirmed that that was what poisoned Navalny. Now we understand: it was done before he left his hotel room to go to the airport.”
