Poisoning, the threat that looms over Russian opponents

Natalia Arno finds it difficult to remain standing still for any length of time. Her right side goes numb, like her back or her face, since she was poisoned five months ago, like so many. activists and Russian opponents.

It all happened at the beginning of May in Prague. “The door to my hotel room was ajar.” and inside floated a “unpleasant smell”says the president of the NGO Free Russia Foundation, 47, from Paris.

The activist first searches in vain for spy microphones, and even laughs at herself for a concern that she considers unfounded. But around 5:00 a.m., she wakes up with severe pain in her mouth.

Arno decides to return to the United States, where he lives, to consult with his dentist, but during the flight the pain spreads through his “armpits, chest, ears, eyes, legs”. ““It’s like all my organs are failing me one by one,” remember.

Tests reveal that she was exposed to “a nerve toxin, which cannot come naturally”. “My nerves have been burned. Maybe they will regenerate within a year.”waits the activist, with a determined look.

An investigation into poisoning is ongoing in the United States, as well as in Germany, where he was located before his stay in Prague.

In addition, a Russian journalist in exile, present like her in Berlin at a meeting with the Russian opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, also fell ill.

A third woman, resident in Georgia, also fears that she may have been poisoned at the end of 2022 in Tbilisi, a symbol of a growing threat to civil society.

Natalia Arno suffers from polyneuropathy, “the same diagnosis as Vladimir Kara-Murza”, points out.

This political opponent, sentenced in April to 25 years in prison for “high treason” for having denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he was poisoned in 2015 and 2017, his wife claims.

“On both occasions, they gave him a 5% chance of survival. But she survived despite everything. “She learned to walk again and use a spoon.”says Evguenia Kara-Murza, 42 years old.

Putin’s “long tentacles”

The woman, citing a journalistic investigation, attributes her husband’s poisoning to “same team” involved in that of Alexei Navalny, the main Russian opponent and in prison. “Murderers in the service of the Russian State“, summarizes.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia was built on the basis of “assault” and the “intimidation”, esteem. “If I did not use these methods of repression, I would not exist”he says with his sweet but firm voice.

Evguenia Kara-Murza denounces that her husband has been imprisoned in a center in Siberia since September in solitary confinement, despite his illness, with the risk of suffering a “paralysis”something in his opinion illegal.

For Natalia Arno, human rights activists constitute “easy goals” for the Kremlin, whose “long tentacles” They come to the West.

Being in the spotlight outside Russia “It shows that we are effective, that we bother them,” underlines the activist, who claims to have been harassed on several occasions before going into exile in 2012.

“When I had to leave Russia, it was at gunpoint” brandished by “FSB agents”, the Russian secret services, he explains.

“Poisoning is something new for me. But I’m not going to become paranoid and pay attention to everything I eat and drink.”he adds.

Natalia Arno and Evguenia Kara-Murza attended a meeting with a hundred Russian activists last weekend in Paris.

“For the opening dinner, we secretly reserved a restaurant and announced the location at the last minute.”declares Olga Prokopieva, spokesperson for the NGO Russie Liberté, organizer of the event.

The organization recommended drinking only closed bottles, but the participants “they were not afraid”he assures. “This is not going to stop them.”

Evguenia Kara-Murza is clear: “I am going to do everything possible to reach the day when this regime collapses (…) because someone I love is behind bars in Russia.”

Source: AFP