Navalny says Russian authorities poisoned him as threat ahead of parliament elections

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he believed Russia's intelligence services had poisoned him with a rare nerve agent because authorities saw him as a threat ahead of next year's parliamentary elections. "They understood that there were big, big problems threatening them ahead of elections for the State Duma," Navalny said in a YouTube interview with a Russian blogger, his first video appearance since being discharged from a Berlin hospital.

The Kremlin has rejected any suggestion that President Vladimir Putin or the Russian authorities were responsible for Navalny's condition. Navalny said he did not know how a Novichok nerve agent had got into his system, but that he could have touched something.

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