What Poisoned Alexei Navalny?

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It would seem that Russia lags a bit behind much of the world in the free speech department. Alexei Navalny, a Russian anti-corruption activist and well-known critic of President Vladimir Putin is being treated in Germany for an apparent case of poisoning by an "organophosphorus neurotoxin." But there are organophosphorus neurotoxins and there are organophosphorus neurotoxins; there is a huge range in toxicity depending upon the structure of the chemical in question.

A recent Wall Street Journal article fails to make this distinction in the first sentence:

"German doctors treating Alexei Navalny said Monday that the Russian dissident was poisoned by a substance commonly found in nerve gas and pesticides."

This statement is automatically incorrect. There are pesticides in this class (usually chlorpyrifos) that kill bugs, and others (VX, Sarin) that kill people even in minuscule doses. It is unwise to get these mixed up. That is, unless it's done intentionally).

Here's the problem: there is no chemical that is used to kill both bugs and people within the organophosphorus neurotoxin class (3). The insecticide chloropyrifos has been used as an agricultural pesticide since 1965. While you wouldn't gargle with it, its toxicity is relatively low; the LD50 in rats (see Table 1) ranges from 95-270 milligrams per kilogram weight of the rat (mpk). To put this in context, the LD50 of caffeine in rats is 367 mpk – not appreciably different from chlorphyifos. This does not mean you should put it in your coffee. It is a known neurotoxin but far less toxic than those used as chemical weapons.



Table 1. The relative acute toxicity of chlorpyrifos, Sarin, and VX in rats. The range of LD50 values represents the toxic dose as a function of the method of exposure, for example, given orally, injected, or applied to the skin. References: (a) Drug and Chemical Toxicology, (b) EXTOXNET

So what got Navalny? We can't say for sure, but we can probably rule out chlorpyrifos. According to a Washington Post story he "sipped a cup of tea at a cafe in Russia's Tomsk airport. Later, the prominent Kremlin critic was moaning in pain, prompting an emergency landing with an ambulance waiting to race him to intensive care."

Let's do a little math and some quasi-educated suppositions. The solubility of chlorpyrifos in water is very low – 1.4 mg per liter at 25°C (77°F). Now we'll take a wild, unsubstantiated guess that the stuff is three-times more soluble in hot water, like tea, and that Navalny had one 8-ounce cup. If I'm doing the math right (about as common as finding a giraffe in your broom closet) that means that Navalny consumed a total of 1mg of the poison – the maximum amount of chlorpyrifos that would dissolve in a cup of tea. Would this be lethal?

No way. Healthy human volunteers were given a dose of 1 mg (3) of the chemical per day for 28 days and nothing happened.

So, it's a pretty good bet that whatever was in that cup of tea was 50 Shades of Nasty, probably VX or Sarin. And a better bet that if you're a dissatisfied Russian and open your mouth it should not be to sip tea.

Source: What Poisoned Alexei Navalny? And The WSJ Needs A Chemistry Lesson.

There was another guy from Siberia that I think was poisoned,forget his name off hand.

I also heard King George the V was secretly murdered with morphine and cocaine.

Alexander Litivenko (sic?)

No he died in 06

There is a guy alive in Siberia today who says he was poisoned,I'm not great at remembering names,sorry,I'd forget my own name

I thought polonium was the russians go-to for political ooisonings.

On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised in what was established as a case of poisoning by radioactive polonium-210; he died from the poisoning on 23 November. He became the first known victim of lethal polonium 210-induced acute radiation syndrome.

I imagine it is the Russian's way of diversifying. I like new gadgets. It is one of my special interest. One of the things I wanted to buy was a wrist watch that would prevent polonium poisoning. They make such a thing. In the end the watch was just a little too expensive and the risk that I would every be poisoned by this method was so small, it really made no logical sense. Except I would have one of the most unique watches ever made.



The MTM Silver RAD is the rarest in our Special Ops line of watches. The watch features a Geiger counter capable of detecting and recording gamma radiation, this unique timepiece is embraced by both collectors and those who work around radiological technologies. Please contact us for details or customize and shop for your MTM RAD radiation detection watch.

Source: Silver Rad

I wonder if they could also build in a VX, Sarin detector into the watch.

Okay, detecting is one thing, how does it prevent it?

You are sitting at a table and a waiter brings you a meal and a drink. Your watch detects the radiation and generates an audible alarm. You are taken aback. What is happening! You move the watch around the table and notice that something such as your meal or drink gives off a high degree of radiation. You step back and call the authorities and identify the waiter that brought you the meal.

IMHO I suspect in Russia the authorities will do nothing to resolve the issue. So you might retrieve a sample of the radiated food/drink as evidence and then quietly leave the table and disappear into the night looking over your shoulders the whole time.

I may be wrong, but I think the reason Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium-210 was because it emits very low levels of gamma radiation and high levels of alpha radiation. Alpha radiation is the most dangerous form but also very hard to detect, particularly after you’ve swallowed the polonium.

That said, the Russians have a whole host of weapons for this situation, like their Novichoks. They probably like to switch it up to increase plausible deniability - if they always used Novichok or Polonium then people would know the Polonium assassinations were them. Maybe one day they’ll be stupid enough to use smallpox.

According to my mother's interpretation, poisoning an Ukrainian called Litvinienko with Polonium is an extremely dark form of poetry.

My bad, I was confusing this incident with the poison umbrella thing with the ricin. Figured detection would do little to help if you've already been stabbed or shot with a pellet of the stuff.

A Russian agent sent to tail opposition leader Alexey Navalny has revealed how he was poisoned in August -- with the lethal nerve agent Novichok planted in his underpants.

The stunning disclosure from an agent who belonged to an elite toxins team in Russia's FSB security service came in a lengthy phone call following the unmasking of the unit by CNN and the online investigative outfit Bellingcat last week.

In what he was told was a debriefing, Konstantin Kudryavtsev also talked about others involved in the poisoning in the Siberian city of Tomsk, and how he was sent to clean things up.

But the agent was not speaking to an official in Russia's National Security Council as he thought. He was talking to Navalny himself, who almost died after being poisoned in August.

Navalny has long been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin, exposing corruption in high places and campaigning against the ruling United Russia party. The Bellingcat-CNN investigation found that the FSB toxins team of about six to 10 agents trailed Navalny for more than three years.

Putin essentially confirmed last week that FSB agents tailed Navalny but said if Russia had wanted him dead, "they would've probably finished it."

Most dramatically Kudryavtsev provided a detailed account of how the nerve agent was applied to a pair of Navalny's underpants. Navalny followed by asking exactly where the Novichok was applied -- the inside or outside seams.
"The insides, the crotch," replied Kudryavtsev. Toxicologists consulted by CNN say that if applied in granular form to clothes, the Novichok would be absorbed through the skin when the victim begins to sweat. They say that, in this instance, it appears the assailants used a solid form of the nerve agent, rather than a liquid or gel as had previously been detected in the attack against former double agent Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom.

Source: Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny dupes spy into revealing how he was poisoned