[imagesource: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty]

Cross Vladimir Putin and your days are numbered.

He makes no secret of it, with lines like “traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me.”

Just ask Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who after death threats from the Russian president were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire, in 2018.

Then there are the healthcare workers, who apart from the risks that come with fighting COVID-19, also appear to run the chance of “falling” out of hospital windows.

In the case of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (below), a long-time foe of Putin, he must have known that his time would eventually come, and it did, when he collapsed on a plane after being poisoned by a nerve agent in August.

Putin addressed this particular attack in his annual press conference on Thursday, in response to an investigation by Bellingcat and CNN, published Monday, which uncovered evidence that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had formed an elite team specialising in nerve agents.

They had apparently been trailing Navalny for years.

After the nerve agent poisoning, he was treated in Omsk, Siberia, following which he was taken to a clinic in Berlin.

Per CNN:

Putin claimed without evidence that Navalny  – whom he referred to as “this patient in the Berlin clinic” – is being supported by US intelligence services, adding, “if that’s correct, then that’s interesting, then of course [our] special services need to keep an eye on him.”

Image: AP

“But that doesn’t mean he needs to be poisoned, who needs him anyway? If [they] wanted to, they would’ve probably finished it,” Putin added.

“But in this case, his wife asked me, and I immediately gave the order to let him out of the country to be treated in Germany… This is a trick to attack the leaders [in Russia].”

I’m surprised that he wasn’t ominously stroking a cat when he said that.

After the press conference, the US State Department responded by blaming Russia, accusing them of engaging in a “shameless disinformation campaign” to shift responsibility for the crime.

“Russia has provided only wildly imaginative alternative theories in an attempt to sow doubt. Their goal is to make people wonder if there might be another plausible explanation for Navalny’s poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN. “There is not. Russia is responsible for this heinous act.”

Putin further claimed that Russia had nothing to do with the 2016 elections and tense relations between Russia and the US, saying that he hopes that it will all be resolved under the Biden administration.

“We proceed from the fact that the elected president of the United States will understand what’s going on – he is an experienced man, both in domestic and foreign policy,” Putin said.

Who needs spy films, when you’ve got Russia.

[source:cnn]