Alexei Navalny was likely killed by ‘a single punch to the heart’
Alexei Navalny was likely killed by a single punch to the heart after being exposed to freezing conditions- a special technique once taught to KGB agents.
The Russian opposition leader was found dead in prison last week with severe bruising on his body consistent with the ‘one punch’ technique, according to Russian exile and human rights campaigner Vladimir Osechkin.
‘It is an old method of the KGB’s special forces divisions,’ Osechkin told The Times. ‘They trained their operatives to kill a man with one punch in the heart, in the centre of the body. It was a hallmark of the KGB.’
Prior to his death, Navalny, 47, had been forced to spend more than two and a half hours in outdoor solitary confinement where temperatures could dip to -27C.
The ‘one punch’ technique was a KGB trademark, according to exiled Russian human rights campaignerVladimir Osechkin (Picture: Vladimir Osechkin)
Prisoners were usually only kept in such conditions for no more than an hour due to the danger posed by such conditions.
‘I think that they first destroyed his body by keeping him out in the cold for a long time and slowing the blood circulation down to a minimum,’ Osechkin said. ‘And then it becomes very easy to kill someone, within seconds, if the operative has some experience in this.’
Osechkin added that former prisoners in Russia’s Arctic regions had previously spoken of inmates being killed by their jailers in such a way.
Information regarding Navalny’s death has been kept secret by Russian authorities, who claim the opposition leader died of ‘sudden death syndrome’ and refuse to release his body as it undergoes two weeks of ‘chemical analysis’.
Navalny’s widow Yulia has accused Putin of murdering her husband, and believes he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.
Meanwhile, penitentiary officials claim he died after feeling unwell while taking a walk, while Telegram channels say the 47-year-old suffered from a blood clot.
British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is serving a 25 year prison sentence in Siberia for criticising the invasion of Ukraine, says ‘vengeful’ Vladimir Putin ‘personally bears responsibility for the death of Alexei Navalny’.
Navalny was reportedly forced to spend two and a half hours in outdoor solitary confinement where temperatures could dip to -27C (Picture: Reuters)
Like Navalny, Kara-Murza opposition figure Kara-Murza was also the victim of poisoning by Putin’s secret services.
In political prisoner Kara-Murza’s case, he twice suffered such a fate, and survived, before being shut away for a quarter of a century.
Speaking from his cell, he said that while he was not aware of specific details of Navalny’s death, he knew ‘one thing for sure.
‘Vladimir Putin personally bears responsibility for the death of Alexei Navalny, because Alexei was his personal prisoner.
‘And only on his personal orders could the poisoners from the 2nd FSB service act.’
The same applied to ‘investigators, prosecutors and judges who processed cases and sentences,’ as well as ‘high prison officials who created torture conditions’.
MPs and friends of Kara-Murza – who also holds Russian citizenship – are working to see him swapped in a prisoner exchange, and allowed to travel to Britain.
Navalny’s wife Yulia has accused Putin of murdering her husband (Picture: AP)
But the prisoner pulled no punches in his first comments on Navalny’s death.
‘This man [Putin] has brought death with him throughout the 25 years of his power – since that very autumn, when peaceful people sleeping in their apartments were blown up at night.’
He was referring to apartment block bombings, blamed on rebel Chechens, but which many believed to have been planted by secret services officers to give a pretext for Putin to go to war in Chechnya and lay the foundations for his political rise.
Referring to other black moments under Putin, he said that what followed was ‘Chechnya, Nord-Ost, Beslan, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine.
‘[Journalist] Anna Politkovskaya, murdered as a birthday gift [to Putin], in her entrance.
‘[Politician] Boris Nemtsov, shot in the back near the Kremlin.
‘Alexei Navalny “lost consciousness after a walk” in prison.’
The opposition leader was sentenced to life in prison on spurious ‘corruption’ charges (Picture: AP)
He warned: ‘The best are dying – the bravest, the most sincere, the most caring.
‘Everyone returns – except those who are most needed.’
Only Putin- ‘the vengeful, cowardly, greedy old man – still holds on with a death grip, destroying anyone in whom he sees a threat to his power.
‘He must be stopped, and only Russian society itself can do this.’
When he was sentenced last year, Navalny – speaking from his own penal colony – called Kara-Murza’s punishment ‘unlawful, unconscionable and quite simply fascist’.
Navalny said: ‘I saw him after the second poisoning and witnessed how his health was already almost destroyed.
‘The term that he received is revenge for the fact that he did not die at the chosen time, having survived two poisonings…by the Russian FSB [Federal Security Service].’
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On Monday, the Kremlin announced that a senior prison official, who was accused of intervening on several occasions to ensure that Navalny would be treated harshly, was to be promoted.
Valery Boyarinev, the deputy director of the prison service, was promoted to the rank of colonel general after a directive was issued personally by Putin’s office.
Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, posted an image of the decree on X, where he wrote that the promotion was a ‘personal reward for torture and murder from Putin.’
‘Boyarinev personally supervised the torture of Alexei Navalny in prison. Restricting Alexei’s purchase of food, like all other tortures, was Boyarinev’s personal order from the FSIN,’ Zhdanov wrote.
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