1 00:00:06,700 --> 00:00:12,500 Opposing Russia's president can be seriously bad for your health. 2 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:18,000 Putin has made it very clear that traitors don't deserve to live. 3 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,080 Assassins can track you down, wherever you are. 4 00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:27,400 In August 2020, Russia's charismatic opposition leader, 5 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:32,240 Aleksei Navalny, was poisoned with the notorious weapon Novichok. 6 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:36,920 Miraculously, he survived. 7 00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:43,120 Putin, he's using this to kill me and, you know, terrify others. 8 00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:49,120 This is an extraordinary story of assassination squads... 9 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:51,000 A murder machine exists in Russia, 10 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:54,360 and it is killing or trying to kill many people. 11 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:56,040 ..a family risking everything... 12 00:01:01,920 --> 00:01:03,560 ..an astonishing confession... 13 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:12,080 It's the first time in history that a murderer admitted to 14 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:14,040 the victim that they tried to kill him. 15 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:16,240 ..and poisoned underpants. 16 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:31,120 It's a tale of two men. One has a team of assassins at his disposal. 17 00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:34,400 The other's only weapons - a sense of humour, 18 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:38,720 a team of intrepid investigators and the power of social media. 19 00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:43,640 At stake, the future of Russia. 20 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:04,040 It's the 20th of August, 2020. 21 00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:07,840 Aleksei Navalny is flying home to Moscow from the Siberian 22 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,760 city of Tomsk in Russia's vast hinterland. 23 00:02:12,320 --> 00:02:15,440 He's President Putin's most famous opponent, 24 00:02:15,440 --> 00:02:17,080 so he's recognised everywhere. 25 00:02:24,920 --> 00:02:28,040 This could have been the last photograph Navalny ever posed for. 26 00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:32,040 He doesn't know it yet, but he's been poisoned. 27 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:37,880 In less than an hour, he'll be in a coma. 28 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:47,640 Navalny boards the plane for the 3,000 km flight west to Moscow. 29 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:50,680 His assistant, Kira Yarmysh, is with him. 30 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:54,040 He starts to watch his favourite cartoon, Rick And Morty. 31 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:51,720 NAVALNY GROANS 32 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:22,800 Paramedics are waiting on the runway. 33 00:04:41,280 --> 00:04:45,040 With his heart rate slowing, they give him atropine - 34 00:04:45,040 --> 00:04:47,440 a standard treatment for insecticide poisoning. 35 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:52,400 But none of the medics know whether he'll live or die. 36 00:04:57,000 --> 00:04:59,640 But why would anyone want to kill him? 37 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:06,440 Dobryi dyen! 38 00:05:08,280 --> 00:05:12,680 For the last ten years, Navalny's sophisticated YouTube videos 39 00:05:12,680 --> 00:05:15,240 have made him Vladimir Putin's most effective opponent. 40 00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:22,080 It wasn't always this way. 41 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:28,280 These are his first less than impressive efforts from 2007. 42 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:35,920 But Navalny's confidence in the possibilities 43 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:37,600 of the internet was unshakeable. 44 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,120 He told me that this is the future of politics, 45 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:48,600 and the young generation, they are in the internet, 46 00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:51,640 they are online, and talking to them is the future of Russia. 47 00:05:57,640 --> 00:06:02,120 First, he developed his live journal account, then appeared Twitter... 48 00:06:04,280 --> 00:06:09,200 ..Facebook, and then, after some time, YouTube, so it was a very 49 00:06:09,200 --> 00:06:13,880 gradual development and emergence of Navalny's social media empire. 50 00:06:15,840 --> 00:06:18,400 Most Russian TV stations were effectively 51 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:22,120 mouthpieces for Putin and his party, United Russia. 52 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:36,080 Hey, hey! The internet, however, was still free. 53 00:06:42,240 --> 00:06:44,240 Navalny's live broadcasts 54 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:48,040 and investigations into corruption were seen by tens of millions. 55 00:07:00,920 --> 00:07:04,520 Over the years, he's made hundreds of videos from all over Russia. 56 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:08,920 And on the day before the poisoning, 57 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:11,600 he's in Siberia to shoot his latest one. 58 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:17,760 He's here to support two anti-Putin candidates standing for election 59 00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:20,800 and, as always, highlighting local corruption. 60 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:35,960 Corruption is something that every Russian 61 00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:40,000 sees in their life every single day. 62 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:43,200 And so that's an issue that sort of gets people's attention, 63 00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:47,600 and that focuses these sometimes desperate public 64 00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:50,600 expressions of discontent against the Kremlin and the Putin regime 65 00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:52,120 into one very clear direction. 66 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:33,720 Navalny's single-minded focus on corruption has made him 67 00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:35,520 powerful enemies, 68 00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:38,920 and he's not the only person in Tomsk on a special mission. 69 00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:46,840 While he's out filming, a secret hit squad that has been 70 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:51,120 following him for over three years is breaking into his hotel room. 71 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:10,560 The next morning, Navalny is in a coma when his wife, Yulia, 72 00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:12,120 is called by Kira Yarmysh. 73 00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:37,640 Yulia heads straight to a Moscow airport 74 00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:41,560 but faces a two-hour delay before the next flight to Siberia. 75 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:55,480 Yulia Navalny has been by Aleksei's side for over 20 years 76 00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,160 and is a public figure in her own right. 77 00:10:11,160 --> 00:10:16,280 The couple met on holiday in Turkey in 1998 and married two years later. 78 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:28,680 The Navalnys' daughter, Dasha, 79 00:10:28,680 --> 00:10:33,080 was born in 2001 and is now a student at Stanford University 80 00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:38,400 in America, while their son, Zahar, is at boarding school in Germany. 81 00:10:55,760 --> 00:11:00,120 Yulia has supported Aleksei through raids on their apartment, 82 00:11:00,120 --> 00:11:01,840 lawsuits and worse. 83 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,360 She's his closest confidante, his best friend 84 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:09,600 and the one who packs his bags every time he goes to prison. 85 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:15,200 She is absolutely part of his journey, both metaphorically, 86 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:18,000 physically, politically - whichever way you want to call it. 87 00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:34,520 As Yulia waits for her flight, 88 00:11:34,520 --> 00:11:37,360 she knows Aleksei's life hangs in the balance. 89 00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:07,240 While Yulia is in the air, Navalny's YouTube channel broadcasts 90 00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:09,440 a live phone interview with Kira Yarmysh. 91 00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:28,880 Russian state television takes a rather different 92 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:30,080 view of his illness. 93 00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:50,480 Yulia and Navalny's doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, 94 00:12:50,480 --> 00:12:55,080 finally get to Omsk, but they're refused permission to see Aleksei. 95 00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:23,680 After two agonising hours, the authorities finally relent. 96 00:14:22,520 --> 00:14:27,240 The official line is that Navalny's illness is due to low blood sugar 97 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:31,640 or possibly alcohol, but Yulia and Anastasia Vasilyeva feel 98 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:33,880 certain that the doctors are hiding something. 99 00:15:44,720 --> 00:15:47,960 Alexei Navalny's road to a hospital bed in Omsk 100 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:50,280 started in the last days of the Soviet Union. 101 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:57,720 He was born in 1976 in a small village near Moscow, 102 00:15:57,720 --> 00:15:59,840 the son of an army officer, 103 00:15:59,840 --> 00:16:03,800 and spent his childhood summers with his grandmother, beside the 104 00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:07,600 River Pripyat, in the shadow of Chernobyl nuclear power station. 105 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:14,040 Russia's radioactivity reaches Britain. Soviet television tonight 106 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:17,160 accused the Western media of spreading slanderous inventions 107 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:19,520 about the Chernobyl accident. 108 00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:22,560 But the Moscow Communist Party chief told West German television 109 00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:26,480 that radioactivity around the nuclear plant was still high. 110 00:16:26,480 --> 00:16:30,000 He was ten when the place became a nuclear wasteland, 111 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:34,400 the result of Communist inefficiency and lies. 112 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:37,600 Navalny spent every summer there, swimming in the river, 113 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,720 which is the source of radiation. 114 00:16:40,720 --> 00:16:43,480 So there is a personal connection there. 115 00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:46,840 It's a symbol of how dysfunctional the Soviet Union is 116 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,520 and everything that's wrong with it, 117 00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:51,320 that lies cost lives. 118 00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:57,600 At the time of Chernobyl, Vladimir Putin was a minor KGB 119 00:16:57,600 --> 00:17:00,560 spy in Dresden, then part of East Germany. 120 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:07,160 But by the turn of the millennium, 121 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:10,680 he'd become one of the most powerful men in the world. 122 00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,160 Alexei was just 23 when Putin became President. 123 00:17:38,920 --> 00:17:42,960 Russians had endured nearly ten years of economic chaos 124 00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:45,640 and corruption, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 125 00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:49,960 Many now welcomed a new, young president, 126 00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:52,320 who promised strong leadership, 127 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:54,120 even if he was the ex-head of the KGB. 128 00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:58,160 And he made friends abroad as well. 129 00:17:59,840 --> 00:18:03,800 I looked the man in the eye, I found him to be very straightforward 130 00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:05,520 and trustworthy. 131 00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:08,800 But some in Russia were not so sure. 132 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:14,360 Journalist and academic Yevgenia Albats felt that he might not 133 00:18:14,360 --> 00:18:18,160 be as committed to democracy as he claimed. 134 00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:24,520 Mostly, I was terrified he will bring his power from the KGB 135 00:18:24,520 --> 00:18:27,720 and they will take over. 136 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:32,720 And eventually, they will become the ones who run the country. 137 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:36,080 It's not just one man who was coming to power. 138 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,880 Albats set out to inspire a new generation of young activists, 139 00:18:41,880 --> 00:18:43,760 with meetings in her Moscow flat. 140 00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:04,880 Navalny was included, but failed to make much of an impression. 141 00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:08,920 Alexei Navalny was not well known 142 00:19:08,920 --> 00:19:10,480 in the democratic movement. 143 00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:14,360 A lot of people would say that he's a nice guy, he's a great organiser, 144 00:19:14,360 --> 00:19:16,560 but he doesn't have any political future. 145 00:19:22,280 --> 00:19:24,920 It was a prediction that Navalny quickly proved wrong. 146 00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:51,560 By 2012, when Putin was elected President for the third time, 147 00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:55,880 Navalny had moved successfully from the virtual world to the real 148 00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:57,080 world of protest. 149 00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:15,480 A powerful orator, he mobilised tens of thousands in opposition to 150 00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:17,760 Putin and his United Russia Party. 151 00:20:38,320 --> 00:20:43,200 By focusing on corruption, he tapped into widespread discontent 152 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,120 and tried to convince the Russian people 153 00:20:45,120 --> 00:20:47,320 that change really was possible. 154 00:20:55,480 --> 00:20:58,840 Throughout 2012, he continued his transformation 155 00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:03,120 from troublemaking YouTuber to troublemaking opposition politician. 156 00:21:18,720 --> 00:21:23,840 Then in 2013, he ran for Mayor of Moscow and incredibly, 157 00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:27,560 almost forced a run off against the United Russia candidate, 158 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:29,760 President Putin's former chief of staff. 159 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,200 He'd made himself such a nuisance that he had to be stopped. 160 00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:47,360 In 2010, 161 00:21:47,360 --> 00:21:51,640 Navalny had gone to study at Yale University in the United States. 162 00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:56,880 His time there has been used by the state to paint him 163 00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:59,800 as a traitor and a paid agent of the CIA. 164 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:06,040 Myself and Alexei were at Yale on the World Fellow Programme, 165 00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,920 along with 12, 13 other people, 166 00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:15,280 who they identify as being potential global leaders, influencers. 167 00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:17,760 There were two real challenges. 168 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:21,200 One would be that he was being recruited by the CIA. 169 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:23,680 The other that's come out is that he would himself be 170 00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:26,040 accused of corruption. 171 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:29,760 They put together a fake set of exchanges between 172 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:31,440 CIA agents or something, 173 00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:35,400 where they would refer to Navalny as Agent Freedom. 174 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:39,960 Anti-corruption activist has to be transformed into the agent 175 00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:43,080 of the enemy. Navalny may be fighting corruption, 176 00:22:43,080 --> 00:22:48,200 but he is a hired gun of the West, to undermine our sovereignty. 177 00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,200 And I think some people by now honestly believe this 178 00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:52,680 narrative within the regime. 179 00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:04,400 As predicted by his colleagues at Yale, Navalny also became 180 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,200 the focus of police investigations into corruption. 181 00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:18,920 He was accused of stealing half a million dollars 182 00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,160 from a timber company. 183 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,120 Then, a year later, both he and his brother Oleg, 184 00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:29,520 were found guilty of defrauding a French cosmetics company. 185 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,880 It's very advantageous for Kremlin, you know, when somebody is fighting 186 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:35,240 corruption to say that he's corrupt himself. 187 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,960 To really understand what was going on takes a lot of time. 188 00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:48,960 So when people don't have a lot of time, you know, 189 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,400 they make all kinds of assumption. 190 00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,560 Even though, legally, there is nothing there. 191 00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,960 The European Court later found that in the first case, 192 00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:03,760 Navalny didn't get a fair trial 193 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:08,600 and his conviction in the second was arbitrary and unfair. 194 00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:28,280 Navalny's brother Oleg served his full sentence of three 195 00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:31,160 and a half years in a penal colony, 196 00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:35,560 while Alexei was paroled after a few weeks on condition that he 197 00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,320 report to Russia's prison service twice a month. 198 00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:51,200 More damaging to his reputation as a liberal are two videos that 199 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,840 Navalny himself made in the mid-2000s. 200 00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:56,840 One in support of gun ownership. 201 00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:04,040 And another against immigration. 202 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,480 ROARS AND GUNFIRE 203 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:59,600 He was naive at that time and I think that this was a mistake 204 00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,280 and I think it's still haunting him. 205 00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:06,680 He's not the same guy as he was when he was filming these videos 206 00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,600 and I think we have to give him the benefit of changing his mind 207 00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:11,920 and, you know, being mistaken. 208 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:16,960 Navalny's nationalist sympathies also led him 209 00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:21,360 to march alongside Neo Nazis, so-called Russian Patriots, 210 00:26:21,360 --> 00:26:24,560 and others on the right wing fringe at several rallies. 211 00:26:30,360 --> 00:26:33,880 There's this endless question with Navalny about those 212 00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,080 nationalist views, and there's some people who have concerns 213 00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:38,600 about them in good faith 214 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:42,440 and there's people who have concerns about them in bad faith. 215 00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:46,840 I asked him about those videos and he was quite clear that he didn't 216 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:51,440 regret them, that they were not something to be taken seriously, but 217 00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,800 he was very clear, he wasn't going to say that they were a mistake. 218 00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,560 I know him as a person I made friends with. 219 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,520 We sat next to each other in class, we had lunch together, 220 00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:28,520 we went on socials together. 221 00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:33,040 Since then, I hear people attempting to pigeonhole him as xenophobic, 222 00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,680 anti-immigrant, racist, hostile and all these other things. 223 00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,040 There is always going to be an attack on his character, 224 00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,680 an attempt to discredit the work he's been doing to expose 225 00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,560 these frauds, just like there was attempts to charge him 226 00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,080 with corruption a few years ago. 227 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,840 But even where he has said things that are problematic, 228 00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,520 my experience of him leaves me with hope for him. 229 00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:59,360 The Kremlin has capitalised on Navalny's apparent racism 230 00:27:59,360 --> 00:28:03,680 and extreme nationalism and Amnesty International at one point 231 00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,280 suspended their support for him. 232 00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:11,160 But in August 2020, as he lay in a coma in Omsk, it was clear that 233 00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,560 someone, somewhere had decided a more permanent solution was 234 00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,720 required to make the Navalny problem go away. 235 00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:38,920 Nuremberg Airport, Germany. 236 00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,040 An air ambulance, paid for by Navalny's supporters, 237 00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:45,720 is on standby to fly 4,000 km to Siberia. 238 00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:49,600 But there's a problem - 239 00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,960 the Kremlin doesn't want Alexei to leave the country just yet. 240 00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:57,400 The team of medics set off anyway, 241 00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,200 hoping the Russians can be persuaded. 242 00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:36,720 Once in Siberia, 243 00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:41,200 the German team is told their patient is too sick to travel. 244 00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:43,560 The Russians, it seems, are playing for time. 245 00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:47,960 We said, hey, look, gentlemen, it would be great 246 00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:53,320 if our team could visit the patient, could speak to you in person, 247 00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:58,200 face-to-face, discuss the situation, show them our equipment, 248 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,120 to convince them let our team go to the patient and see 249 00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,520 if we can discuss it and see if this could change their minds of course. 250 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:29,120 In the hospital, 251 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,800 Yulia is not allowed to speak to the German doctors. 252 00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:36,640 Whoever ordered Navalny's poisoning 253 00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,000 knows exactly what is wrong with him. 254 00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:40,960 But it appears that, having messed up the murder, 255 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,160 they are now trying to cover their tracks. 256 00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,520 When the German medics are whisked away to their hotel, 257 00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,280 Yulia gives an impromptu press conference. 258 00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,960 Navalny is also being talked about in Berlin. 259 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:22,240 Two days after he was stretchered, dying, from an aeroplane, 260 00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:23,640 Navalny is on the move again. 261 00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:28,960 Vladimir Putin, it seems, has relented, 262 00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:32,680 and we reveal that the crucial intervention came from Finland. 263 00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,600 There was a very significant international pressure 264 00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:41,040 applied from French President Macron, from Charles Michel, 265 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,840 the president of the European Council, and I think the final call, 266 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:49,160 which nailed it, was a call from the Finnish president, 267 00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,680 Sauli Niinisto, who has, like, 268 00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,680 a more or less trustful relations with Putin. 269 00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,520 Probably President Niinisto had found some right words 270 00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,280 to persuade Putin to avoid major scandal. 271 00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:05,880 Still unsure what has caused Navalny's illness, 272 00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,880 the aircrew are taking no chances. 273 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:10,520 They put him in a plastic case, 274 00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:14,760 to make sure whatever is on or in him doesn't affect anyone else. 275 00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,040 Exactly what that is remains a mystery. 276 00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,640 In Germany, a convoy carries Navalny to the Charite Hospital 277 00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:35,640 in Berlin. 278 00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,040 Blood and urine samples are sent for analysis to various laboratories 279 00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:42,040 around Europe, and the mystery poison is finally identified. 280 00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,840 It is a form of Novichok, the banned chemical weapon infamously used 281 00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:55,840 against Yulia and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, in 2018. 282 00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,480 Russian state television has a very different way 283 00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,920 of presenting the latest instalment of the drama to its viewers. 284 00:34:50,720 --> 00:34:54,640 While accusations fly around the world, Navalny is still in a coma. 285 00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,600 But miraculously, just over two weeks later, 286 00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:03,960 his condition has improved so much 287 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,640 that his doctors decide to bring him round. 288 00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:06,440 Navalny leaves hospital after just four and a half weeks, 289 00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,360 but he is struggling to walk, his hands shake, 290 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,560 and he's constantly exhausted. 291 00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:16,440 A month later, he appears on American television. 292 00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:18,920 It's clear his spirit is unbroken. 293 00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:25,000 We should fight these people because they will never stop. 294 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,480 They will poison someone else, they will poison more people. 295 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,320 As he heads to the Black Forest to recuperate, 296 00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,560 attention turns to who tried to kill him. 297 00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:42,320 The revelations that eventually emerge are astonishing. 298 00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,440 A secret poison lab, 299 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,480 a state-sponsored assassination programme, 300 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:51,720 and a team of James Bond wannabes 301 00:36:51,720 --> 00:36:54,160 with the competence of Johnny English. 302 00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:11,200 You will not see us run. 303 00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:12,720 You will not see us hide. 304 00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:14,520 You will not see us give up. 305 00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,160 This is our country. 306 00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:17,360 We have to fight for it. 307 00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,520 While Navalny recovers in Germany, 308 00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,360 Vladimir Kara-Murza knows exactly what he's going through. 309 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,240 An outspoken critic of Putin, 310 00:37:27,240 --> 00:37:30,640 he has twice been the victim of suspected poisoning. 311 00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:37,200 I suddenly felt difficulty breathing, my heart began to race. 312 00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:41,600 I felt my blood pressure drop. I began to sweat, I began to vomit. 313 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,040 It's painful and terrifying, to be feeling 314 00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,120 that you are dying at this moment and to not be able to breathe. 315 00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:53,440 And after that, I don't remember anything for more than a month. 316 00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,120 Like Navalny, Kara-Murza survived, 317 00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,320 but he knows he is one of the lucky ones. 318 00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,200 It's a strange statistical model, 319 00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:06,240 that people who happen to oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin... 320 00:38:06,240 --> 00:38:08,720 ..happen to just walk into these strange accidents 321 00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:11,840 and suffer from really bad health and just be really 322 00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,480 not careful with what they do and how they live their lives. 323 00:38:16,080 --> 00:38:18,680 There is a long list of victims. 324 00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:22,480 Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot on her doorstep. 325 00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:29,160 Whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, dead after a beating in prison. 326 00:38:29,160 --> 00:38:31,760 Defector Alexander Litvinenko, 327 00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,720 poisoned in London with polonium-210, 328 00:38:34,720 --> 00:38:36,440 served to him in a cup of tea. 329 00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,240 Politician Sergei Yushenkov, shot dead near his house. 330 00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,040 And there are many more who have perished suddenly 331 00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:48,720 or had lucky escapes. 332 00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:54,240 Putin has made it very clear that he thinks traitors don't deserve 333 00:38:54,240 --> 00:38:57,560 to live and we have seen people he considers to be traitors, 334 00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:01,160 like Alexander Litvinenko or Sergei Skripal, you know, 335 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:04,640 the denials they have had anything to do with those murders, 336 00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,480 those attempted murders in the case of Skripal, they have been 337 00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,200 sort of almost denials with a bit of a wink and a nod. 338 00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:15,720 The Russian state media alleged that Litvinenko himself 339 00:39:15,720 --> 00:39:18,960 was illegally trading in polonium and accidentally swallowed it. 340 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:21,680 When Viktor Yushchenko, 341 00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:24,160 the Ukrainian presidential candidate, suffered a horrible 342 00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:27,920 poisoning, Russian state television said that he ate bad sushi. 343 00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:34,520 With me, it was too much alcohol in combination with some medicines. 344 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:36,840 With Alexei Navalny, it was low blood sugar. 345 00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,280 Every time, the Kremlin and its propaganda machine 346 00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:47,120 immediately starts to throw out these "alternative" explanations. 347 00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:49,320 They immediately start to muddy the waters. 348 00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:55,640 One assassination that hit Alexei Navalny particular hard 349 00:39:55,640 --> 00:40:00,000 was the murder in 2015 of his political mentor, Boris Nemtsov. 350 00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,640 Nemtsov had been the Deputy Prime Minister in the '90s, 351 00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,080 but fell out with Putin and joined the opposition. 352 00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,160 My father and Navalny got closer. 353 00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:20,360 There was one moment when they found themselves locked in one prison 354 00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:24,680 cell and they spent the whole night together, talking to each other. 355 00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:33,040 My father was a political visionary. 356 00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,120 He was very experienced as a politician. 357 00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:43,520 He was... 358 00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:48,800 ..a person who united opposition leaders 359 00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:52,160 because he didn't have personal ambitions. 360 00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:58,520 That's what many other opposition leaders later admitted - 361 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:02,960 he was like a unifying figure in the Russian opposition. 362 00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:08,360 In February 2015, Nemtsov was walking home 363 00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:11,000 over the Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy Bridge, 364 00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,200 within sight of the Kremlin, in central Moscow. 365 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,400 Despite the site's strategic importance, 366 00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,640 all CCTV cameras in the area had conveniently been turned off. 367 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,760 But a distant view from a local TV station captured the hit. 368 00:41:32,920 --> 00:41:36,720 As a truck draws up alongside him, a gunman shoots Nemtsov 369 00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:40,960 in the back before making his getaway in the circled car. 370 00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,760 I went to bed at around 11 o'clock, 371 00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:01,440 and I had a habit to switch off all my smartphones, not to be disturbed. 372 00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,120 My mother, for some reason, did not do that on this night. 373 00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:13,560 In the midnight, I heard her crying and yelling, 374 00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,160 and I didn't understand what had happened. 375 00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:21,480 And then she came to my room and she said, er... 376 00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,120 "Our father is dead." 377 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:28,960 This was the most brazen, 378 00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:31,560 the most high-profile political assassination in the modern 379 00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:34,640 history of Russia and to this day, the organisers, 380 00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:39,960 the masterminds of this crime continue to enjoy full protection 381 00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,320 from the highest levels of the Russian state, 382 00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,520 for reasons that I think are obvious to everyone who is watching this. 383 00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,280 He mentioned that he could be killed, 384 00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:54,120 but I don't believe that he believed in it, really. 385 00:42:55,720 --> 00:43:00,120 He thought like that I was in the government in the '90s, 386 00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:05,680 I'm one of the most high-profile politicians in Russia. 387 00:43:07,240 --> 00:43:08,640 It's impossible. 388 00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:32,920 Whoever ordered Nemtsov's murder has never been identified. 389 00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:36,240 And five years later, 390 00:43:36,240 --> 00:43:40,240 as Navalny recovers from the Novichok attack in the Black Forest, 391 00:43:40,240 --> 00:43:44,040 it looks as if whoever poisoned him is also going to get away with it. 392 00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:52,480 But Bellingcat, a loose alliance of citizen journalists, 393 00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:55,400 founded in a bedroom in Leicester, has other ideas. 394 00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,880 Bellingcat has an incredible record of solving global whodunnits. 395 00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:04,880 It tracked the Russian missile launcher that brought down 396 00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:08,440 flight MH17 over Ukraine, 397 00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:13,080 and named the Salisbury poisoners, identifying them as Russian spies. 398 00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:19,600 As Navalny recuperates, its researchers are piecing 399 00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:23,840 together the evidence to stand up a sensational accusation. 400 00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:31,200 The big picture that we got was that, yes, 401 00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:34,800 a murder machine exists in Russia and it is killing, 402 00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,920 or trying to kill many people, and the question is, how many? 403 00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,960 Following on from its investigation into the Salisbury poisoning 404 00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,720 of the Skripals, the Bellingcat team found 405 00:44:45,720 --> 00:44:49,520 a secret Russian chemical weapons plant called the Signal Institute. 406 00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:56,080 With mobile phone records bought on the Russian black market, 407 00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:59,680 they discovered links between senior staff there 408 00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:02,080 and a team within Russia's secret police, the FSB. 409 00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:11,520 The FSB has this scary second service which is 410 00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,240 the equivalent of Hitler's Gestapo. 411 00:45:14,240 --> 00:45:16,960 It is essentially the political police that goes after 412 00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:18,520 opposition figures. 413 00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:22,120 We had just completed an investigation 414 00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:23,840 into the Signal Institute, 415 00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,960 which we found continued to engage in production 416 00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,760 and upgrading of chemical weapons. 417 00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:32,720 And what we started doing then was looking at metadata 418 00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:36,240 and call logs of people at the top of this scientific institute, 419 00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:39,840 and trying to find if there is any interconnection 420 00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:41,160 with somebody from the FSB. 421 00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:45,880 This information is important in two ways. 422 00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:49,240 First of all, of course, we understand that this person 423 00:45:49,240 --> 00:45:53,480 speaks with another and we can link two different agents together. 424 00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,840 And through GPS, we see where this person is located. 425 00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:03,240 And we found that one of the most frequent counterparts 426 00:46:03,240 --> 00:46:09,040 of the scientific institute guy from the FSB side was communicating 427 00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:14,160 frequently with five people that have a chemical weapons background 428 00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:17,960 or a medical background, or a chemical engineering background. 429 00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:21,560 Then we started tracing their travel. 430 00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:25,760 And we found that there had been significant overlaps between 431 00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:29,400 their travel and destinations that Alexei Navalny had travelled to. 432 00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:35,200 At the outset, we found three or four overlaps and we thought, 433 00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,400 well, this could still be a coincidence. 434 00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:43,200 By tracking their flights and using facial recognition software, 435 00:46:43,200 --> 00:46:46,800 they found that members of the team were travelling under fake names 436 00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:51,480 and several were using passports with consecutive serial numbers, 437 00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,760 a giveaway that they were produced in a batch by the FSB. 438 00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,480 We delved further and deeper and we found a total of more than 35 439 00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,880 overlaps and then we thought, OK, well, this cannot be a coincidence. 440 00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,720 This must be the team that has been tailing him, 441 00:47:09,720 --> 00:47:12,600 and this could not be just a political surveillance team 442 00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:16,400 because a political surveillance team would not include a doctor, 443 00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:19,080 a chemical engineer and a chemical weapons specialist. 444 00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:23,600 Either they were creating a pattern of his movements 445 00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,320 so that they can plan an assassination operation when needed, 446 00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:30,800 or they were always on standby, waiting for a political decision 447 00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,720 from somebody high up, who might have decided, hmm, 448 00:47:34,720 --> 00:47:37,840 now is the time because he becomes a risk or a danger. 449 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:43,000 The Bellingcat investigators then discovered a direct connection 450 00:47:43,000 --> 00:47:45,600 between the FSB poison team 451 00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:48,120 and Navalny's last journey, to Tomsk. 452 00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,280 One of the FSB unit, Alexandrov, 453 00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:59,240 he switched on his cellphone for only one second in Tomsk. 454 00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,400 I think he was just changing his Sim card, 455 00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,240 because he wanted to work secretly. 456 00:48:06,240 --> 00:48:10,680 But he didn't know that even if you turn on your phone, it's enough 457 00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:15,880 to send one byte of information to your telephone operator. 458 00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:19,960 Bellingcat's painstaking research has found enough evidence 459 00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:23,920 left behind by the would-be assassins to prove beyond reasonable 460 00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,080 doubt that there is a team of chemical killers stalking Navalny. 461 00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:32,400 And coming up, for the first time, 462 00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:36,640 the man who invented Novichok shares a shocking revelation. 463 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:03,840 This is Shikhany, a closed military town 1,000 km southeast of Moscow. 464 00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:09,000 It's been a centre for chemical weapons research for decades. 465 00:49:11,720 --> 00:49:14,760 British intelligence believes the Novichok used on the Skripals 466 00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:17,480 in Salisbury was manufactured here. 467 00:49:18,720 --> 00:49:21,440 It might even have been made by this man. 468 00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,960 Uglev's knowledge of how Novichok works 469 00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:47,800 meant that he recognised Navalny's symptoms 470 00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:52,080 long before lab tests proved it was the poison used on him. 471 00:50:19,240 --> 00:50:21,920 Uglev thinks that the Russians have secretly made 472 00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,560 his original invention more deadly. 473 00:50:34,720 --> 00:50:38,480 This suggests Russia has not only been violating international 474 00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:43,280 chemical weapons treaties by storing and using old nerve agents, 475 00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,680 it's also been covertly developing new poisons 476 00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:48,880 as part of its assassination programme. 477 00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:54,000 Uglev also believes he knows how the Novichok was administered. 478 00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:59,440 As soon as Navalny's team in Tomsk got news of his collapse, 479 00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,640 they went to his hotel room to collect anything that might 480 00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,760 be evidence of foul play and sent it to Germany. 481 00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:11,800 Novichok was later found on the outside of a water bottle, 482 00:51:11,800 --> 00:51:13,120 but not in the water. 483 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:17,320 Uglev knows why. 484 00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:58,040 A secret chemical weapon... 485 00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:04,760 ..poisoned underpants and a crack team of assassins. 486 00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:06,960 What could possibly go wrong? 487 00:52:22,240 --> 00:52:24,680 It's six weeks before Putin's poisoners 488 00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,560 very nearly kill Navalny in Siberia, 489 00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:31,040 and Yulia and Alexei have decided they need a summer holiday. 490 00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,600 What better romantic getaway can there be 491 00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:38,960 than a week in the Baltic resort of Kaliningrad? 492 00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:50,360 Coincidentally, three FSB secret agents have exactly the same idea 493 00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:54,200 and book a vacation to the same destination at the same time. 494 00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,720 Even hit men deserve a break now and again. 495 00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:15,200 Three days into their holiday, the Navalnys are walking along the beach 496 00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:17,120 when Yulia starts to feel unwell. 497 00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:53,600 By the next morning, Yulia had recovered, 498 00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:57,120 so we'll never know if this was just some bad sushi 499 00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:00,200 or if the three men who were following the Navalnys - 500 00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,000 all with chemical weapons expertise - 501 00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,840 had made a botched attempt to kill Alexei 502 00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:08,200 and almost poisoned Yulia. 503 00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,640 We cannot be 100% sure that that's what happened, but what we do see 504 00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:15,440 is that the team was there exactly on the time when she fell ill, 505 00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:18,360 and that immediately after that, there was a spike of phone calls 506 00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:22,040 between this team and people at the Signal Institute, 507 00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:23,320 which produces Novichok. 508 00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:42,040 The Bellingcat dossier shows that a chemical weapons hit squad 509 00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:44,240 had been following Navalny for years. 510 00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:50,600 But what is it about the summer of 2020 that makes someone, somewhere 511 00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,440 decide that Alexei Navalny must die? 512 00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:04,280 CHANTING 513 00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:08,680 REPORTER: The March to Freedom, attended by tens of thousands today. 514 00:55:08,680 --> 00:55:11,760 This was a remarkable display of people power without fear. 515 00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:18,200 Nine days before Navalny's poisoning, Minsk, 516 00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:22,520 the capital of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, was in turmoil. 517 00:55:22,520 --> 00:55:24,720 CROWD CHEERS 518 00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:28,840 SIRENS BLARE 519 00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:29,720 SHOUTING 520 00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:32,640 EXPLOSIONS 521 00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:41,280 700 km east of Moscow, and not even part of Russia, 522 00:55:41,280 --> 00:55:44,280 Belarus has been ruled for the last 25 years 523 00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:50,720 by a man many call Europe's last dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. 524 00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:54,200 As he sought a sixth term in office in 2020, 525 00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:57,200 an opposition movement seemed to appear out of nowhere. 526 00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:04,280 Its figurehead was a previously unknown English teacher, 527 00:56:04,280 --> 00:56:06,600 Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. 528 00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:08,920 CROWD CHEERS 529 00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:28,640 CROWD CHEERS 530 00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:36,040 For decades, Putin watched and supported 531 00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:38,920 Belarus's oppressive throwback to Soviet rule. 532 00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:45,640 Could his reaction to the protests have sealed Navalny's fate? 533 00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:50,280 What happened in Belarus may be a coincidence, 534 00:56:50,280 --> 00:56:52,800 but certainly I think there was probably a feeling 535 00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:56,640 that when you have latent discontent, 536 00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:59,840 having any outlet to express it is dangerous. 537 00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:01,760 And a charismatic politician, 538 00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:05,280 with a network of dedicated campaigners 539 00:57:05,280 --> 00:57:08,360 in cities across the country, 540 00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:11,480 if he is someone that, at the crisis moment, pops up 541 00:57:11,480 --> 00:57:14,560 and is offering an alternative, I think that's very dangerous. 542 00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:18,040 REPORTER: For the past week, this country has been the latest arena 543 00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:21,440 in the tussle between autocracy and democracy. 544 00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:26,400 As the protesters in Belarus threatened to topple their leader, 545 00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:29,520 the question in the Kremlin of what to do about Navalny 546 00:57:29,520 --> 00:57:31,200 became increasingly urgent. 547 00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:35,000 I think that Vladimir Putin believed that 548 00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:37,760 this is a very, very likely possibility. 549 00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:41,600 And he understood that, of course, Navalny would be the person who 550 00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:46,040 would bring hundreds of thousands of people in Russia to the streets. 551 00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:48,800 REPORTER: The revolution is in seductive mode. 552 00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:51,800 And who knows if the soldiers' awkward blushes 553 00:57:51,800 --> 00:57:54,280 will translate into a failure to fire? 554 00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:58,800 They were hugely unnerved by the protests. 555 00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:03,680 And he saw it as an omen of similar things coming to Russia. 556 00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:05,880 So, the connections were not hard to build. 557 00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:10,000 With Navalny on his way to Siberia, 558 00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:14,240 the order went out to eliminate Putin's turbulent tormentor. 559 00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:21,240 But ultimately, the quick decisions of a pilot who wasn't in on the plot 560 00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:24,560 and paramedics who were just trying to save a life 561 00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:27,360 led to yet another botched assassination. 562 00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:31,760 And from his German retreat, 563 00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:35,320 Navalny - armed with Bellingcat's research - 564 00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:39,240 begins to taunt Putin and his team of poisoners. 565 00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:02,520 It's one thing to understand something intellectually, 566 00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:08,480 as it were, and it's quite another to be shown the faces and names 567 00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:12,320 of the actual people who tried to kill me. 568 00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:13,800 I was looking at the photographs, 569 00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:15,560 and I was seeing just normal, ordinary faces - 570 00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,160 you know, the kind that I would see here on the streets of Moscow 571 00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:22,480 every single day. And yet these people are professional murderers 572 00:59:22,480 --> 00:59:24,760 in the employment of the state. 573 00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:26,080 I was thinking to myself, 574 00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:28,760 "What do these people talk about at the family dinner table?" 575 00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:30,240 What do their kids ask them about - 576 00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:32,440 "How many people did you poison today, Daddy?" 577 00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:35,000 It's mind-boggling. 578 00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:39,960 REPORTER: We enter a rundown apartment building 579 00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:43,720 on the outskirts of Moscow where operative Oleg Tayakin lives. 580 00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:48,760 With the help of Bellingcat and Navalny, a journalist from CNN 581 00:59:48,760 --> 00:59:51,320 decides to track down one of the alleged assassins. 582 00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,400 My name's Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN. 583 00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:57,760 Can I ask you a couple of questions? 584 00:59:57,760 --> 01:00:00,560 No surprise that Mr Tayakin didn't want to chat. 585 01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:05,240 But his boss, the president, was more forthcoming. 586 01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:27,800 He admitted that there had been FSB people tailing Navalny. 587 01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:30,800 Interestingly enough, he also said, 588 01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:35,200 "If we had tried to poison him, we would have finished the job," 589 01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:38,000 which is one of the most shocking things to come from a head of state, 590 01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:42,400 because he did not even try to argue that "We don't kill people." 591 01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:45,920 He just said, "If we want to kill people, we do it properly." 592 01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:50,960 As 2020 draws to a close, 593 01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:54,040 Navalny has another surprise lined up for the president. 594 01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:25,160 Navalny's newest video blows apart Putin's claim 595 01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:28,760 that if the FSB had been involved, they'd have done the job properly 596 01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:30,960 and Alexei would be dead. 597 01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:42,720 Navalny calls up one of the team involved in the poisoning, 598 01:01:42,720 --> 01:01:46,600 posing as the assistant to one of Putin's most senior advisers. 599 01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:24,680 For a long time, I thought, "There's no way that this guy wouldn't have 600 01:03:24,680 --> 01:03:29,080 "recognised Alexei's voice. There's no way that he's not fooling us." 601 01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:33,080 Probably at any given moment in time, we will have the FSB 602 01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:37,400 break down the door in this German house we were in and just kill us. 603 01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:13,920 And then I thought, "Well, this is real, this is happening. 604 01:04:13,920 --> 01:04:17,080 "The guy really thinks he's talking to the aide to the boss." 605 01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:19,280 And he's spilling the beans in real time. 606 01:04:56,600 --> 01:04:58,680 It's just unbelievable. 607 01:04:58,680 --> 01:05:03,200 I mean, I assume it's the first time in the history of criminality 608 01:05:03,200 --> 01:05:07,000 that the alleged murderers actually admitted to the victim 609 01:05:07,000 --> 01:05:08,680 that they tried to kill him, 610 01:05:08,680 --> 01:05:11,920 describing exactly how they did it and where they put the Novichok. 611 01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:37,960 Like me and you, we thought Russian secret services 612 01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:41,760 are professional and they're scary. 613 01:05:41,760 --> 01:05:46,960 The underpants story created a stream of memes 614 01:05:46,960 --> 01:05:50,360 that make fun of the Kremlin, but also of secret services, 615 01:05:50,360 --> 01:05:54,280 and equate them with underpants washers, underpants cleaners, 616 01:05:54,280 --> 01:05:56,120 underpants poisoners. 617 01:05:56,120 --> 01:05:58,560 And this is probably the worst damage 618 01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:01,720 done to the Russian secret services that I have seen in my career. 619 01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:39,760 After Navalny throws his latest YouTube custard pie 620 01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:42,960 at Putin from the relative safety of Germany, 621 01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:45,920 people start to wonder if he'll ever return to Russia. 622 01:06:47,480 --> 01:06:50,480 Some of his supporters want him to stay in the West, 623 01:06:50,480 --> 01:06:53,800 part of the ever-expanding Russian opposition-in-exile. 624 01:06:57,800 --> 01:07:00,840 But on the 13th of January, 2021, 625 01:07:00,840 --> 01:07:04,520 Navalny ends the speculation - he's going home. 626 01:07:06,680 --> 01:07:09,040 I challenged him whether that was smart, 627 01:07:09,040 --> 01:07:12,720 whether that was expedient, and he said it doesn't matter. 628 01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:16,800 He said, I have to return to Russia because the alternative means 629 01:07:16,800 --> 01:07:22,320 soon I will be just an emigre who's just yelling at Russia. 630 01:07:22,320 --> 01:07:27,440 I need to be where my followers are. I need to be there. 631 01:08:02,440 --> 01:08:05,680 Aleksei and Yulia board a flight to Moscow. 632 01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:08,920 The plane is packed with journalists. 633 01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:12,880 The master of social media is stage managing his return 634 01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:14,560 for maximum impact. 635 01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:30,320 He's even chosen a Russian airline called Pobeda, meaning Victory. 636 01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:36,520 Seated a few rows behind the Navalnys is Arkady Ostrovsky. 637 01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:41,960 I knew this was a big political act. 638 01:08:41,960 --> 01:08:45,640 It was no ordinary flight and, with real history, 639 01:08:45,640 --> 01:08:50,080 you sensed it was happening there and then. 640 01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:53,120 It's a flight carrying him back into politics and turning him 641 01:08:53,120 --> 01:08:54,880 into sort of a mythical figure. 642 01:09:03,480 --> 01:09:07,000 Hundreds of supporters gather at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport 643 01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:08,440 to welcome their hero home. 644 01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:13,480 But at the last moment, the flight is diverted to another 645 01:09:13,480 --> 01:09:16,640 airport where a rather different group is waiting for him. 646 01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:33,760 He's arrested as he clears passport control 647 01:09:33,760 --> 01:09:37,160 and spirited away to a police station. 648 01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:40,160 He's charged with violating the terms of his parole 649 01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:44,560 from 2014 by not reporting immediately to the authorities 650 01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:47,360 in Russia on his discharge from hospital in Germany. 651 01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:27,080 With Navalny behind bars and facing a lengthy prison sentence, 652 01:10:27,080 --> 01:10:29,440 Putin seems to be holding all the aces. 653 01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:34,920 But Aleksei still has at least one more card up his sleeve, 654 01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:39,160 and it's something Vladimir Putin will never forget or forgive. 655 01:10:57,000 --> 01:11:01,000 Awaiting trial inside one of Russia's toughest prisons, 656 01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:05,800 Matrosskaya Tishina, some people would be cowed. 657 01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:07,160 Not Alexei Navalny. 658 01:11:08,280 --> 01:11:09,720 Via his lawyers, 659 01:11:09,720 --> 01:11:14,400 he greenlights the release of his most audacious video yet. 660 01:11:14,400 --> 01:11:17,160 His team have been secretly working on it for months. 661 01:11:28,960 --> 01:11:33,600 Navalny is about to be sent away for a long time, 662 01:11:33,600 --> 01:11:37,920 and he lobs this missile attack at the Kremlin from behind bars. 663 01:12:01,280 --> 01:12:04,200 In ten days, the film - Putin's Palace - 664 01:12:04,200 --> 01:12:07,200 racks up over 100 million views. 665 01:12:08,560 --> 01:12:11,080 By February, it's been seen by a quarter 666 01:12:11,080 --> 01:12:13,000 of Russia's adult population. 667 01:12:14,600 --> 01:12:19,000 It combines biting satire with forensic investigation, 668 01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:21,760 in a direct attack on Vladimir Putin. 669 01:12:30,080 --> 01:12:33,440 For many people across Russia, this was like a big eye-opener. 670 01:12:37,960 --> 01:12:42,360 It reveals the existence of a secret palace on the Black Sea 671 01:12:42,360 --> 01:12:45,240 that allegedly belongs to the Russian President. 672 01:12:47,120 --> 01:12:51,440 Putin, for years, has maintained this ascetic image, you know, 673 01:12:51,440 --> 01:12:54,120 like he only works for Russia 24/7 674 01:12:54,120 --> 01:12:57,800 and he doesn't care about riches, material things, you know? 675 01:13:28,760 --> 01:13:32,760 Putin's approval rating has a six percentage point dip 676 01:13:32,760 --> 01:13:35,800 in three, four weeks after the movie was released. 677 01:13:42,840 --> 01:13:45,280 CASH REGISTER DINGS 678 01:13:49,520 --> 01:13:52,680 People actually realised that this is essentially a maniac 679 01:13:52,680 --> 01:13:54,640 preoccupied with luxury. 680 01:13:56,440 --> 01:14:00,000 As damaging as the revelations of personal greed 681 01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:02,600 are the details about the palace itself. 682 01:14:06,280 --> 01:14:10,880 Gold toilet brushes worth 700 euros each, 683 01:14:10,880 --> 01:14:13,320 a retractable stripper pole 684 01:14:13,320 --> 01:14:16,680 and a room for playing with toy cars. 685 01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:42,440 The film questions not just Putin's greed but his sanity. 686 01:14:59,680 --> 01:15:04,600 Putin denies he has any connection to the palace, let alone owns it. 687 01:15:07,400 --> 01:15:12,240 Then at the end of January 2021, his former judo sparring partner, 688 01:15:12,240 --> 01:15:17,320 the oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, steps forward to claim that it's his. 689 01:15:41,720 --> 01:15:45,280 With just two weeks to go before Navalny is due in court 690 01:15:45,280 --> 01:15:49,680 for sentencing, this deliberate baiting of Putin 691 01:15:49,680 --> 01:15:53,000 seems calculated to ensure he will become a martyr. 692 01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:05,920 Far away from the excess of Putin's palace, 693 01:16:05,920 --> 01:16:09,920 the next scene in the battle between Navalny and the Kremlin 694 01:16:09,920 --> 01:16:12,960 plays out in a dingy Moscow courtroom. 695 01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:35,240 The outcome is never in doubt. 696 01:16:37,040 --> 01:16:40,520 Navalny is sentenced to three and a half years in prison 697 01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:43,160 for failing to comply with the terms of his parole. 698 01:16:44,960 --> 01:16:46,680 Before he's led away, 699 01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:50,480 he makes an impassioned speech that's secretly recorded, 700 01:16:50,480 --> 01:16:53,680 mocking his would-be assassins and their master. 701 01:17:28,000 --> 01:17:31,920 He saves his final gesture for his wife, Yulia. 702 01:17:33,240 --> 01:17:37,120 There is always this double optic with Navalny. 703 01:17:37,120 --> 01:17:41,000 He is talking to the nation, he is talking to all his supporters. 704 01:17:42,160 --> 01:17:44,440 But actually, he is talking and addressing himself 705 01:17:44,440 --> 01:17:45,840 to Yulia Navalnaya. 706 01:17:47,480 --> 01:17:49,080 And then they are separated 707 01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:53,480 and he is standing behind the bulletproof glass in this cage, 708 01:17:53,480 --> 01:17:56,240 and he makes the heart symbol with his hands. 709 01:18:15,520 --> 01:18:19,840 Navalny is moved to Pokrov Penal Colony No 2, 710 01:18:19,840 --> 01:18:22,680 100 km east of Moscow. 711 01:18:22,680 --> 01:18:25,640 THEY CHANT 712 01:18:25,640 --> 01:18:28,600 It's one of Russia's harshest prisons. 713 01:18:28,600 --> 01:18:31,960 Konstantin Kotov spent four long years here, 714 01:18:31,960 --> 01:18:35,000 sentenced for taking part in political rallies. 715 01:19:18,160 --> 01:19:21,640 Navalny gets Instagram messages out to his supporters 716 01:19:21,640 --> 01:19:22,680 through his lawyers. 717 01:19:25,880 --> 01:19:28,440 But as the prison regime takes its toll, 718 01:19:28,440 --> 01:19:31,880 the effects of the Novichok mean his health starts to fail. 719 01:19:35,880 --> 01:19:38,720 The authorities refuse to take him to hospital. 720 01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:45,120 He spends 24 days on hunger strike, demanding better health care. 721 01:20:13,080 --> 01:20:15,600 What we see now is that he's in jail, 722 01:20:15,600 --> 01:20:19,320 with a seriously deteriorating medical condition. 723 01:20:19,320 --> 01:20:22,720 Some of the symptoms we see are neurological symptoms. 724 01:20:22,720 --> 01:20:25,080 He doesn't feel his right leg. 725 01:20:25,080 --> 01:20:27,440 He cannot control the muscles of his right leg. 726 01:20:27,440 --> 01:20:30,200 But because the Russian authorities refused to recognise 727 01:20:30,200 --> 01:20:32,560 he was poisoned in the first place, 728 01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:35,680 doctors are not even allowed to take that previous poisoning into account 729 01:20:35,680 --> 01:20:38,520 when they are diagnosing what's wrong with him now. 730 01:20:38,520 --> 01:20:41,360 And this itself is criminal and can be fatal. 731 01:20:43,920 --> 01:20:46,480 The months since Navalny's imprisonment 732 01:20:46,480 --> 01:20:49,320 have seen Russia face deepening oppression. 733 01:20:50,640 --> 01:20:54,000 In June, Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, 734 01:20:54,000 --> 01:20:56,000 Fond Borby s Korruptsiyey, 735 01:20:56,000 --> 01:20:59,120 was designated an extremist organisation, 736 01:20:59,120 --> 01:21:02,600 making it equivalent to Al-Qaeda and Isis. 737 01:21:02,600 --> 01:21:06,360 Supporting Navalny in any way can now get you arrested. 738 01:21:08,040 --> 01:21:13,000 His allies had hoped to use tactical voting to beat Putin's party, 739 01:21:13,000 --> 01:21:16,840 United Russia, in September's elections. 740 01:21:16,840 --> 01:21:20,040 Now, they're just hoping to stay out of prison. 741 01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:42,360 SHOUTING ON VIDEO 742 01:21:42,360 --> 01:21:45,000 Over the course of making this film, 743 01:21:45,000 --> 01:21:48,160 our contributors have been outlawed and imprisoned. 744 01:21:49,720 --> 01:21:53,440 In Tomsk, Ksenia Fadeeva has been arrested twice 745 01:21:53,440 --> 01:21:55,320 and had her computers seized. 746 01:21:57,240 --> 01:21:59,880 Roman Dobrokhotov's home was raided by the police, 747 01:21:59,880 --> 01:22:01,640 and he was taken in for questioning. 748 01:22:03,640 --> 01:22:06,920 Vladimir Milov has chosen to go into exile in Latvia. 749 01:22:08,920 --> 01:22:12,160 Kira Yarmysh was put under nightly house arrest 750 01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:14,360 and has now gone into exile in Finland. 751 01:22:15,920 --> 01:22:18,200 Politician Ilya Yashin has been barred 752 01:22:18,200 --> 01:22:19,960 from contesting future elections. 753 01:22:21,280 --> 01:22:26,240 Dr Anastasia Vasilyeva was arrested on September 1. 754 01:22:26,240 --> 01:22:29,680 And in Moscow, police have used hacked data 755 01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:33,440 to find and question Navalny's low-level supporters, 756 01:22:33,440 --> 01:22:36,160 rounding them up in alphabetical order. 757 01:22:40,040 --> 01:22:42,920 Though they are both children of the Soviet Union, 758 01:22:42,920 --> 01:22:47,760 Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny have radically opposing visions 759 01:22:47,760 --> 01:22:50,040 for Russia and its place in the world. 760 01:23:23,320 --> 01:23:26,960 The poisoning and imprisonment of Alexei Navalny 761 01:23:26,960 --> 01:23:29,440 means Vladimir Putin appears to have won. 762 01:23:31,800 --> 01:23:34,800 Navalny's organisation has been reduced to rubble. 763 01:23:39,840 --> 01:23:42,560 And yet the attempt to destroy Navalny 764 01:23:42,560 --> 01:23:47,400 has drawn the eyes of the world to Putin's most persistent critic. 765 01:23:56,320 --> 01:23:59,440 We know from Russia's own history 766 01:23:59,440 --> 01:24:03,760 that major political change usually comes like this, 767 01:24:03,760 --> 01:24:06,120 suddenly and unexpectedly. 768 01:24:06,120 --> 01:24:09,160 And I myself am old enough to remember that no-one 769 01:24:09,160 --> 01:24:13,560 at the beginning of August of 1991 predicted that the Soviet regime 770 01:24:13,560 --> 01:24:16,480 would not exist by the end of the month 771 01:24:16,480 --> 01:24:21,360 and that one of the most repressive and horrific totalitarian systems 772 01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:26,440 in the history of humanity will go down in three days. 773 01:24:26,440 --> 01:24:28,480 This is how things happen in Russia. 774 01:24:28,480 --> 01:24:31,400 None of us can tell exactly when or how 775 01:24:31,400 --> 01:24:33,360 political change is going to come. 776 01:24:33,360 --> 01:24:35,960 The only thing we know is that it will - 777 01:24:35,960 --> 01:24:37,840 because nothing is forever. 778 01:24:37,840 --> 01:24:40,240 And Vladimir Putin is not going to be an exception. 779 01:24:40,240 --> 01:24:42,640 His regime is not going to be an exception. 780 01:24:45,320 --> 01:24:49,000 Both Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny want to be remembered 781 01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:53,320 as the man who defined 21st-century Russia. 782 01:24:53,320 --> 01:24:55,120 Only one of them can succeed. 783 01:24:56,720 --> 01:25:01,120 Alexei Navalny will become President of the Russian Federation. 784 01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:04,960 He will become the leader who is going to turn Russia 785 01:25:04,960 --> 01:25:07,160 back on its democratic path. 786 01:25:09,120 --> 01:25:12,920 On an aeroplane one morning in August 2020, 787 01:25:12,920 --> 01:25:16,080 Alexei Navalny stared death in the face. 788 01:25:17,960 --> 01:25:20,600 He has survived...for now. 789 01:25:22,440 --> 01:25:24,840 I think it's a good thing. 790 01:25:24,840 --> 01:25:29,840 It's very useful for a politician, maybe, facing death once. 791 01:25:32,480 --> 01:25:38,120 Maybe ironically, I became kind of more human after this facing death.