TheEconomistOctober 17th 2020 431A
lexei navalny, Russia’s charismatic
opposition leader, has always had
something of the Hollywood hero about
him, and he likes to illustrate his speeches
with references to popular movies. Reflect-
ing on the journey he has made from Sibe-
ria, where he was poisoned with Novichok,
a nerve agent, to a Berlin hospital, where he
awoke after a three-week coma, he is con-
scious of the cinematic quality of the plot
so far: a people’s hero challenges an evil
dictator who tries to kill him with a myste-
rious poison. But his loyal friends and his
devoted wife bring him back to life. “It
starts like a political thriller, then turns
into a romantic comedy,” he tells The Econ-
omistduring an interview in Berlin.
The intubation scars on his neck, his
gaunt look, the tremor in his hands and the
insomnia are a little too real for a Holly-
wood movie, though. And the biggest
changes are less visible. “Paradoxically, I
have become more humane, maybe even
sentimental,” he says. Watching the recent
satellite footage of military drones hitting
targets in the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict,
he surprised himself thinking: “Hang on a
second, this black dot is a person who just
probably lost his legs and is now staring
into the sky...It is good for a politician to
look into the face of death,” he says.
Mr Navalny (pictured above, for Der
Spiegel), who almost died on August 20th
on board a flight from Siberia to Moscow,
certainly did that. The heavy police pres-
ence outside the house in Berlin where he
is recovering confirms he is still in dangerfrom the man widely believed to have or-
dered or sanctioned his poisoning. Mr Na-
valny speaks his name loud and clear: Vlad-
imir Putin, the president of Russia.
Start with the weapon. The toxin was
identified by Germany as a new version of
Novichok, a class of military-grade nerve
agents. “There is no black market for Novi-
chok,” says Mr Navalny. “And the fact that
this is a new variety means that Russia has
an active programme in prohibited chemi-
cal weapons that could only be accessed by
special services with Putin’s approval.”
The Kremlin’s refusal to investigate the
poisoning, and its willingness to shatter
relations with Germany and the euin order
to cover it up, confirm Mr Putin’s involve-
ment, he argues. So does Mr Putin’s expla-
nation, in a conversation with Emmanuel
Macron, the French president, that Mr Na-
valny poisoned himself to discredit the
Kremlin. It was a line so insultingly absurd
that Mr Macron leaked it to the media. “It
shows that Putin cannot transfer responsi-
bility for this,” argues Mr Navalny.
His poisoning marks the transforma-
tion of the Russian regime “like that mo-
ment in ‘Alien’, when an egg shell breaks
and a monster springs out...there are no
more red lines,” he says. A mysterious
death from an invisible poison was intend-
ed to strike terror both at home and abroad.
“Putin clearly revels in this idea of his mys-An interview with Russia’s opposition leader
The man who lived
BERLIN
By surviving an assassination attempt, Alexei Navalny may have become
stronger than ever
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