Navalny wasn’t the First nor Last Russian Murder Victim

The United Kingdom and other European nations have accused Russia of killing Russian imprisoned oppositionist Alexei Navalny with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs.

The international community should bear in mind that Navalny wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last. Russia has repeatedly flouting international bans on chemical and biological weapons and conducted murders of important anti-Kremlin leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

European nations have accused the Kremlin of also carrying out a 2018 attack in the English city of Salisbury that targeted a former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, with the nerve agent Novichok. Skripal and his daughter became seriously ill, and a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after she came across a discarded bottle with traces of the nerve agent.

A British inquiry concluded that the attack “must have been authorized at the highest level, by President Putin.”

The Kremlin has unsurprisingly denied involvement. Russia also denied poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent turned Kremlin critic who died in London in 2006, after ingesting the radioactive isotope polonium-210. A British inquiry concluded that two Russian agents killed Litvinenko, and Putin had “probably approved” the operation.

History knows the truth.

On the Ukrainian side, in the past century Moscow – communist or putinist – has assassinated “Shchedryk” (“Carol of the Bells”) composer Mykola Leontovych, and revolutionary leaders Symon Petliura, Yevhen Konovalets, Lev Rebet, Stepan Bandera, and recently Andriy Parubiy and others.