NATO Confirms that Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Was Poisoned by a Chemical WMD

The Russian Federation regime of tyrant Vladimir Putin, an ex-Soviet intelligence officer, poisoned the leader of the democratic opposition, Alexei Navalny. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has confirmed the finding of the German Government that a nerve agent was used to try to kill him. The possession and use of the nerve agent, which had been developed by the Soviets, is banned by chemical weapons treaties. The same chemical weapon of mass destruction was used to attempt to murder an exiled former Russian intelligence officer in the United Kingdom two years ago. Germany and other Western States are demanding Russian cooperation with the Navalny poisoning investigation. Last year, a Russian exile was murdered in Germany. Germany and the U.K. are both members of NATO. Navalny, who has been comatose for two weeks since the poisoning, had been transferred to Germany for treatment. The previous opposition leader was shot to death near the Kremlin in 2015. Another prominent member of the opposition has twice been poisoned. Numerous Putin critics, opposition members or journalists have been arrested, charged and convicted on questionable pretenses, driven into exile or murdered, both in Russia and abroad, using a variety of techniques and poisons. A radioactive isotope was used in the U.K fourteen years ago to kill a former Russian intelligence officer who had made accusations against Putin, for example. Navalny has been arrested several times for organizing peaceful protests, which Putin does not tolerate. In addition to attempting to murder expatriate regime opponents, the Kremlin abuses Interpol with arrest demands unsupported by adequate evidence. The Kremlin denies the allegations with its usual tactic of trying to create doubts that anything is knowable, and the Western professional media publishes the denials, sometimes even without context of the history of Putin’s lies and evil deeds. Russian disinformation efforts can be expected next to make the contradictory argument, which the media will report, that it is certain that one or another of various Putin opponents were really behind the poisoning. Such efforts effectively allow those sympathetic to Putin to find excuses to continue to support him. And Westerners and others in free States will continue foolishly to believe there might be rogues controlling stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in a tyranny whose leader relies politically upon the portrayal of himself as a strongman who is the only one who can keep people safe. Putin rose to power in 1999 under a democratic pretense, but has governed as an authoritarian and has rigged elections while deriving his support from the oligarchy that looted Russia of its assets after the collapse of Communism. He has lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin aids rogue regimes, including terrorists sponsors, has invaded two former Soviet Republics, interferes heavily in European and American politics and elections, and engages in various other machinations.