1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,720 This programme contains strong language, scenes of violence 2 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 3 00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:07,320 and graphic injury that some viewers may find distressing. 4 00:00:07,360 --> 00:00:10,760 Opposing Russia's president can be seriously bad for your health. 5 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 6 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:17,800 Putin has made it very clear that traitors don't deserve to live. 7 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,000 Assassins can track you down, wherever you are. 8 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:27,160 In August 2020, Russia's charismatic opposition leader, 9 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:32,160 Aleksei Navalny, was poisoned with the notorious weapon Novichok. 10 00:00:34,600 --> 00:00:36,800 Miraculously, he survived. 11 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:43,040 Putin, he's using this to kill me and, you know, terrify others. 12 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:48,920 This is an extraordinary story of assassination squads... 13 00:00:48,960 --> 00:00:50,760 A murder machine exists in Russia, 14 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:54,200 and it is killing or trying to kill many people. 15 00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:55,960 ..a family risking everything... 16 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:03,480 ..an astonishing confession... 17 00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:11,840 It's the first time in history that a murderer admitted to 18 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:13,880 the victim that they tried to kill him. 19 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:16,120 ..and poisoned underpants. 20 00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:30,880 It's a tale of two men. One has a team of assassins at his disposal. 21 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:34,160 The other's only weapons - a sense of humour, 22 00:01:34,200 --> 00:01:38,640 a team of intrepid investigators and the power of social media. 23 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:43,560 At stake, the future of Russia. 24 00:01:59,880 --> 00:02:03,800 It's the 20th of August, 2020. 25 00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:07,600 Aleksei Navalny is flying home to Moscow from the Siberian 26 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:10,680 city of Tomsk in Russia's vast hinterland. 27 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,280 He's President Putin's most famous opponent, 28 00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:17,000 so he's recognised everywhere. 29 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:27,960 This could have been the last photograph Navalny ever posed for. 30 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:31,960 He doesn't know it yet, but he's been poisoned. 31 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:37,800 In less than an hour, he'll be in a coma. 32 00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:47,400 Navalny boards the plane for the 3,000 km flight west to Moscow. 33 00:02:47,440 --> 00:02:50,440 His assistant, Kira Yarmysh, is with him. 34 00:02:50,480 --> 00:02:53,960 He starts to watch his favourite cartoon, Rick And Morty. 35 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:51,640 NAVALNY GROANS 36 00:04:20,400 --> 00:04:22,720 Paramedics are waiting on the runway. 37 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:44,800 With his heart rate slowing, they give him atropine - 38 00:04:44,840 --> 00:04:47,360 a standard treatment for insecticide poisoning. 39 00:04:48,840 --> 00:04:52,320 But none of the medics know whether he'll live or die. 40 00:04:56,800 --> 00:04:59,560 But why would anyone want to kill him? 41 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:06,360 Dobryi dyen! 42 00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:12,320 For the last ten years, Navalny's sophisticated YouTube videos 43 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,160 have made him Vladimir Putin's most effective opponent. 44 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,000 It wasn't always this way. 45 00:05:23,840 --> 00:05:28,120 These are his first less than impressive efforts from 2007. 46 00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:35,480 But Navalny's confidence in the possibilities 47 00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:37,520 of the internet was unshakeable. 48 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:44,880 He told me that this is the future of politics, 49 00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:48,360 and the young generation, they are in the internet, 50 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:51,560 they are online, and talking to them is the future of Russia. 51 00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:02,040 First, he developed his live journal account, then appeared Twitter... 52 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:08,960 ..Facebook, and then, after some time, YouTube, so it was a very 53 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:13,800 gradual development and emergence of Navalny's social media empire. 54 00:06:15,640 --> 00:06:18,160 Most Russian TV stations were effectively 55 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:22,040 mouthpieces for Putin and his party, United Russia. 56 00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:36,000 Hey, hey! The internet, however, was still free. 57 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:44,000 Navalny's live broadcasts 58 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:47,960 and investigations into corruption were seen by tens of millions. 59 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,440 Over the years, he's made hundreds of videos from all over Russia. 60 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:08,680 And on the day before the poisoning, 61 00:07:08,720 --> 00:07:11,520 he's in Siberia to shoot his latest one. 62 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:17,520 He's here to support two anti-Putin candidates standing for election 63 00:07:17,560 --> 00:07:20,720 and, as always, highlighting local corruption. 64 00:07:32,080 --> 00:07:35,720 Corruption is something that every Russian 65 00:07:35,760 --> 00:07:39,760 sees in their life every single day. 66 00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:42,960 And so that's an issue that sort of gets people's attention, 67 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:47,080 and that focuses these sometimes desperate public 68 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:50,440 expressions of discontent against the Kremlin and the Putin regime 69 00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:52,040 into one very clear direction. 70 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:33,560 Navalny's single-minded focus on corruption has made him 71 00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:35,280 powerful enemies, 72 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:38,840 and he's not the only person in Tomsk on a special mission. 73 00:08:42,840 --> 00:08:46,600 While he's out filming, a secret hit squad that has been 74 00:08:46,640 --> 00:08:51,040 following him for over three years is breaking into his hotel room. 75 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:10,400 The next morning, Navalny is in a coma when his wife, Yulia, 76 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:12,040 is called by Kira Yarmysh. 77 00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:37,400 Yulia heads straight to a Moscow airport 78 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:41,480 but faces a two-hour delay before the next flight to Siberia. 79 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:55,240 Yulia Navalny has been by Aleksei's side for over 20 years 80 00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:58,080 and is a public figure in her own right. 81 00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:16,200 The couple met on holiday in Turkey in 1998 and married two years later. 82 00:10:26,680 --> 00:10:28,440 The Navalnys' daughter, Dasha, 83 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:32,840 was born in 2001 and is now a student at Stanford University 84 00:10:32,880 --> 00:10:38,320 in America, while their son, Zahar, is at boarding school in Germany. 85 00:10:55,560 --> 00:10:59,960 Yulia has supported Aleksei through raids on their apartment, 86 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:01,760 lawsuits and worse. 87 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:06,120 She's his closest confidante, his best friend 88 00:11:06,160 --> 00:11:09,520 and the one who packs his bags every time he goes to prison. 89 00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:14,840 She is absolutely part of his journey, both metaphorically, 90 00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:17,920 physically, politically - whichever way you want to call it. 91 00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:34,240 As Yulia waits for her flight, 92 00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:37,280 she knows Aleksei's life hangs in the balance. 93 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:06,880 While Yulia is in the air, Navalny's YouTube channel broadcasts 94 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:09,360 a live phone interview with Kira Yarmysh. 95 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:28,720 Russian state television takes a rather different 96 00:12:28,760 --> 00:12:30,000 view of his illness. 97 00:12:46,400 --> 00:12:50,240 Yulia and Navalny's doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, 98 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:55,000 finally get to Omsk, but they're refused permission to see Aleksei. 99 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:23,360 After two agonising hours, the authorities finally relent. 100 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:27,000 The official line is that Navalny's illness is due to low blood sugar 101 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:31,360 or possibly alcohol, but Yulia and Anastasia Vasilyeva feel 102 00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:33,800 certain that the doctors are hiding something. 103 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:46,720 Alexei Navalny's road to a hospital bed in Omsk 104 00:15:46,760 --> 00:15:49,200 started in the last days of the Soviet Union. 105 00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:56,560 He was born in 1976 in a small village near Moscow, 106 00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:58,600 the son of an army officer, 107 00:15:58,640 --> 00:16:02,560 and spent his childhood summers with his grandmother, beside the 108 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:06,520 River Pripyat, in the shadow of Chernobyl nuclear power station. 109 00:16:09,040 --> 00:16:12,800 Russia's radioactivity reaches Britain. Soviet television tonight 110 00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:16,000 accused the Western media of spreading slanderous inventions 111 00:16:16,040 --> 00:16:18,080 about the Chernobyl accident. 112 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:21,320 But the Moscow Communist Party chief told West German television 113 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:25,240 that radioactivity around the nuclear plant was still high. 114 00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:28,760 He was ten when the place became a nuclear wasteland, 115 00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:32,880 the result of Communist inefficiency and lies. 116 00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:36,440 Navalny spent every summer there, swimming in the river, 117 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:39,480 which is the source of radiation. 118 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:42,240 So there is a personal connection there. 119 00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:45,680 It's a symbol of how dysfunctional the Soviet Union is 120 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:48,360 and everything that's wrong with it, 121 00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:50,240 that lies cost lives. 122 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,160 At the time of Chernobyl, Vladimir Putin was a minor KGB 123 00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:59,480 spy in Dresden, then part of East Germany. 124 00:17:04,280 --> 00:17:05,920 But by the turn of the millennium, 125 00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:09,600 he'd become one of the most powerful men in the world. 126 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:23,080 Alexei was just 23 when Putin became President. 127 00:17:37,720 --> 00:17:41,720 Russians had endured nearly ten years of economic chaos 128 00:17:41,760 --> 00:17:44,560 and corruption, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 129 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:48,800 Many now welcomed a new, young president, 130 00:17:48,840 --> 00:17:50,960 who promised strong leadership, 131 00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:53,040 even if he was the ex-head of the KGB. 132 00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:57,080 And he made friends abroad as well. 133 00:17:58,640 --> 00:18:02,640 I looked the man in the eye, I found him to be very straightforward 134 00:18:02,680 --> 00:18:04,360 and trustworthy. 135 00:18:04,400 --> 00:18:07,720 But some in Russia were not so sure. 136 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:13,120 Journalist and academic Yevgenia Albats felt that he might not 137 00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,920 be as committed to democracy as he claimed. 138 00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:23,240 Mostly, I was terrified he will bring his power from the KGB 139 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:26,480 and they will take over. 140 00:18:26,520 --> 00:18:31,480 And eventually, they will become the ones who run the country. 141 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:35,000 It's not just one man who was coming to power. 142 00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:40,720 Albats set out to inspire a new generation of young activists, 143 00:18:40,760 --> 00:18:42,680 with meetings in her Moscow flat. 144 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:03,800 Navalny was included, but failed to make much of an impression. 145 00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:07,760 Alexei Navalny was not well known 146 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:09,240 in the democratic movement. 147 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:13,120 A lot of people would say that he's a nice guy, he's a great organiser, 148 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:15,240 but he doesn't have any political future. 149 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:23,840 It was a prediction that Navalny quickly proved wrong. 150 00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:50,280 By 2012, when Putin was elected President for the third time, 151 00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:54,680 Navalny had moved successfully from the virtual world to the real 152 00:19:54,720 --> 00:19:56,000 world of protest. 153 00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:14,320 A powerful orator, he mobilised tens of thousands in opposition to 154 00:20:14,360 --> 00:20:16,680 Putin and his United Russia Party. 155 00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:41,960 By focusing on corruption, he tapped into widespread discontent 156 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:43,960 and tried to convince the Russian people 157 00:20:44,000 --> 00:20:46,160 that change really was possible. 158 00:20:54,280 --> 00:20:57,600 Throughout 2012, he continued his transformation 159 00:20:57,640 --> 00:21:02,040 from troublemaking YouTuber to troublemaking opposition politician. 160 00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:22,600 Then in 2013, he ran for Mayor of Moscow and incredibly, 161 00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:26,320 almost forced a run off against the United Russia candidate, 162 00:21:26,360 --> 00:21:28,440 President Putin's former chief of staff. 163 00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,120 He'd made himself such a nuisance that he had to be stopped. 164 00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:46,120 In 2010, 165 00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:50,560 Navalny had gone to study at Yale University in the United States. 166 00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:55,640 His time there has been used by the state to paint him 167 00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,720 as a traitor and a paid agent of the CIA. 168 00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:04,880 Myself and Alexei were at Yale on the World Fellow Programme, 169 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:07,680 along with 12, 13 other people, 170 00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:14,080 who they identify as being potential global leaders, influencers. 171 00:22:14,120 --> 00:22:16,520 There were two real challenges. 172 00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,960 One would be that he was being recruited by the CIA. 173 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,520 The other that's come out is that he would himself be 174 00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:24,680 accused of corruption. 175 00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:28,600 They put together a fake set of exchanges between 176 00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:30,200 CIA agents or something, 177 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:34,160 where they would refer to Navalny as Agent Freedom. 178 00:22:34,200 --> 00:22:38,720 Anti-corruption activist has to be transformed into the agent 179 00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,840 of the enemy. Navalny may be fighting corruption, 180 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:46,960 but he is a hired gun of the West, to undermine our sovereignty. 181 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:50,040 And I think some people by now honestly believe this 182 00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:51,600 narrative within the regime. 183 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:03,160 As predicted by his colleagues at Yale, Navalny also became 184 00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,120 the focus of police investigations into corruption. 185 00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,760 He was accused of stealing half a million dollars 186 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:20,920 from a timber company. 187 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,880 Then, a year later, both he and his brother Oleg, 188 00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:28,000 were found guilty of defrauding a French cosmetics company. 189 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:31,640 It's very advantageous for Kremlin, you know, when somebody is fighting 190 00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:33,960 corruption to say that he's corrupt himself. 191 00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:36,880 To really understand what was going on takes a lot of time. 192 00:23:44,960 --> 00:23:47,800 So when people don't have a lot of time, you know, 193 00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,160 they make all kinds of assumption. 194 00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,480 Even though, legally, there is nothing there. 195 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,800 The European Court later found that in the first case, 196 00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:02,520 Navalny didn't get a fair trial 197 00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:07,520 and his conviction in the second was arbitrary and unfair. 198 00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:27,120 Navalny's brother Oleg served his full sentence of three 199 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,920 and a half years in a penal colony, 200 00:24:29,960 --> 00:24:34,200 while Alexei was paroled after a few weeks on condition that he 201 00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:37,240 report to Russia's prison service twice a month. 202 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,880 More damaging to his reputation as a liberal are two videos that 203 00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,680 Navalny himself made in the mid-2000s. 204 00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,760 One in support of gun ownership. 205 00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:02,760 And another against immigration. 206 00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,400 ROARS AND GUNFIRE 207 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,440 He was naive at that time and I think that this was a mistake 208 00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:01,040 and I think it's still haunting him. 209 00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:05,240 He's not the same guy as he was when he was filming these videos 210 00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,440 and I think we have to give him the benefit of changing his mind 211 00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:10,840 and, you know, being mistaken. 212 00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:15,720 Navalny's nationalist sympathies also led him 213 00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:20,080 to march alongside Neo Nazis, so-called Russian Patriots, 214 00:26:20,120 --> 00:26:23,480 and others on the right wing fringe at several rallies. 215 00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:32,640 There's this endless question with Navalny about those 216 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,920 nationalist views, and there's some people who have concerns 217 00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:37,360 about them in good faith 218 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:41,200 and there's people who have concerns about them in bad faith. 219 00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,360 I asked him about those videos and he was quite clear that he didn't 220 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:50,200 regret them, that they were not something to be taken seriously, but 221 00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,720 he was very clear, he wasn't going to say that they were a mistake. 222 00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:22,320 I know him as a person I made friends with. 223 00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:25,360 We sat next to each other in class, we had lunch together, 224 00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:27,280 we went on socials together. 225 00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:31,800 Since then, I hear people attempting to pigeonhole him as xenophobic, 226 00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:35,440 anti-immigrant, racist, hostile and all these other things. 227 00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,680 There is always going to be an attack on his character, 228 00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,440 an attempt to discredit the work he's been doing to expose 229 00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,400 these frauds, just like there was attempts to charge him 230 00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:46,840 with corruption a few years ago. 231 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,600 But even where he has said things that are problematic, 232 00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,440 my experience of him leaves me with hope for him. 233 00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,120 The Kremlin has capitalised on Navalny's apparent racism 234 00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:02,400 and extreme nationalism and Amnesty International at one point 235 00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,040 suspended their support for him. 236 00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:09,920 But in August 2020, as he lay in a coma in Omsk, it was clear that 237 00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,080 someone, somewhere had decided a more permanent solution was 238 00:28:14,120 --> 00:28:17,640 required to make the Navalny problem go away. 239 00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:37,840 Nuremberg Airport, Germany. 240 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:41,800 An air ambulance, paid for by Navalny's supporters, 241 00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,640 is on standby to fly 4,000 km to Siberia. 242 00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:48,360 But there's a problem - 243 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,880 the Kremlin doesn't want Alexei to leave the country just yet. 244 00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,160 The team of medics set off anyway, 245 00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:58,120 hoping the Russians can be persuaded. 246 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:35,480 Once in Siberia, 247 00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:39,960 the German team is told their patient is too sick to travel. 248 00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,480 The Russians, it seems, are playing for time. 249 00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:46,720 We said, hey, look, gentlemen, it would be great 250 00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:52,080 if our team could visit the patient, could speak to you in person, 251 00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:56,960 face-to-face, discuss the situation, show them our equipment, 252 00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:00,880 to convince them let our team go to the patient and see 253 00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,440 if we can discuss it and see if this could change their minds of course. 254 00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:27,880 In the hospital, 255 00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,720 Yulia is not allowed to speak to the German doctors. 256 00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:35,400 Whoever ordered Navalny's poisoning 257 00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:37,480 knows exactly what is wrong with him. 258 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:39,720 But it appears that, having messed up the murder, 259 00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:41,840 they are now trying to cover their tracks. 260 00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,280 When the German medics are whisked away to their hotel, 261 00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,200 Yulia gives an impromptu press conference. 262 00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:54,880 Navalny is also being talked about in Berlin. 263 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,960 Two days after he was stretchered, dying, from an aeroplane, 264 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:22,560 Navalny is on the move again. 265 00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:27,720 Vladimir Putin, it seems, has relented, 266 00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:31,600 and we reveal that the crucial intervention came from Finland. 267 00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,360 There was a very significant international pressure 268 00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,800 applied from French President Macron, from Charles Michel, 269 00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:43,600 the president of the European Council, and I think the final call, 270 00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:47,720 which nailed it, was a call from the Finnish president, 271 00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,440 Sauli Niinisto, who has, like, 272 00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:54,440 a more or less trustful relations with Putin. 273 00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:58,280 Probably President Niinisto had found some right words 274 00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,200 to persuade Putin to avoid major scandal. 275 00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:04,720 Still unsure what has caused Navalny's illness, 276 00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,720 the aircrew are taking no chances. 277 00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:09,280 They put him in a plastic case, 278 00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:13,560 to make sure whatever is on or in him doesn't affect anyone else. 279 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:17,960 Exactly what that is remains a mystery. 280 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:32,480 In Germany, a convoy carries Navalny to the Charite Hospital 281 00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:34,400 in Berlin. 282 00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:37,800 Blood and urine samples are sent for analysis to various laboratories 283 00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:40,960 around Europe, and the mystery poison is finally identified. 284 00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,320 It is a form of Novichok, the banned chemical weapon infamously used 285 00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:54,760 against Yulia and Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England, in 2018. 286 00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,240 Russian state television has a very different way 287 00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,840 of presenting the latest instalment of the drama to its viewers. 288 00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,560 While accusations fly around the world, Navalny is still in a coma. 289 00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,440 But miraculously, just over two weeks later, 290 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:02,720 his condition has improved so much 291 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,560 that his doctors decide to bring him round. 292 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,200 Navalny leaves hospital after just four and a half weeks, 293 00:36:05,240 --> 00:36:08,200 but he is struggling to walk, his hands shake, 294 00:36:08,240 --> 00:36:10,360 and he's constantly exhausted. 295 00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:15,280 A month later, he appears on American television. 296 00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:17,840 It's clear his spirit is unbroken. 297 00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:23,480 We should fight these people because they will never stop. 298 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:26,400 They will poison someone else, they will poison more people. 299 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:33,080 As he heads to the Black Forest to recuperate, 300 00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,480 attention turns to who tried to kill him. 301 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,240 The revelations that eventually emerge are astonishing. 302 00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:44,200 A secret poison lab, 303 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:47,320 a state-sponsored assassination programme, 304 00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,480 and a team of James Bond wannabes 305 00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,080 with the competence of Johnny English. 306 00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,040 You will not see us run. 307 00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:11,560 You will not see us hide. 308 00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:13,360 You will not see us give up. 309 00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:15,000 This is our country. 310 00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:16,280 We have to fight for it. 311 00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,280 While Navalny recovers in Germany, 312 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,200 Vladimir Kara-Murza knows exactly what he's going through. 313 00:37:24,240 --> 00:37:26,000 An outspoken critic of Putin, 314 00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,560 he has twice been the victim of suspected poisoning. 315 00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,960 I suddenly felt difficulty breathing, my heart began to race. 316 00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:40,320 I felt my blood pressure drop. I began to sweat, I began to vomit. 317 00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,800 It's painful and terrifying, to be feeling 318 00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:46,040 that you are dying at this moment and to not be able to breathe. 319 00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:52,120 And after that, I don't remember anything for more than a month. 320 00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,880 Like Navalny, Kara-Murza survived, 321 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,040 but he knows he is one of the lucky ones. 322 00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,960 It's a strange statistical model, 323 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:05,000 that people who happen to oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin... 324 00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:07,480 ..happen to just walk into these strange accidents 325 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,600 and suffer from really bad health and just be really 326 00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,400 not careful with what they do and how they live their lives. 327 00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,440 There is a long list of victims. 328 00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,400 Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot on her doorstep. 329 00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:28,000 Whistle-blower Sergei Magnitsky, dead after a beating in prison. 330 00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:30,520 Defector Alexander Litvinenko, 331 00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,560 poisoned in London with polonium-210, 332 00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:35,360 served to him in a cup of tea. 333 00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:41,160 Politician Sergei Yushenkov, shot dead near his house. 334 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,880 And there are many more who have perished suddenly 335 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:47,640 or had lucky escapes. 336 00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:53,000 Putin has made it very clear that he thinks traitors don't deserve 337 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,320 to live and we have seen people he considers to be traitors, 338 00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,920 like Alexander Litvinenko or Sergei Skripal, you know, 339 00:38:59,960 --> 00:39:03,400 the denials they have had anything to do with those murders, 340 00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,240 those attempted murders in the case of Skripal, they have been 341 00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,960 sort of almost denials with a bit of a wink and a nod. 342 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:14,480 The Russian state media alleged that Litvinenko himself 343 00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,880 was illegally trading in polonium and accidentally swallowed it. 344 00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:20,440 When Viktor Yushchenko, 345 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,920 the Ukrainian presidential candidate, suffered a horrible 346 00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,840 poisoning, Russian state television said that he ate bad sushi. 347 00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:33,280 With me, it was too much alcohol in combination with some medicines. 348 00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,760 With Alexei Navalny, it was low blood sugar. 349 00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,040 Every time, the Kremlin and its propaganda machine 350 00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:45,880 immediately starts to throw out these "alternative" explanations. 351 00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,240 They immediately start to muddy the waters. 352 00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:54,400 One assassination that hit Alexei Navalny particular hard 353 00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,920 was the murder in 2015 of his political mentor, Boris Nemtsov. 354 00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,400 Nemtsov had been the Deputy Prime Minister in the '90s, 355 00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:08,000 but fell out with Putin and joined the opposition. 356 00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:13,920 My father and Navalny got closer. 357 00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:19,120 There was one moment when they found themselves locked in one prison 358 00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:23,600 cell and they spent the whole night together, talking to each other. 359 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,960 My father was a political visionary. 360 00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,040 He was very experienced as a politician. 361 00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:42,440 He was... 362 00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,560 ..a person who united opposition leaders 363 00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:51,080 because he didn't have personal ambitions. 364 00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:57,280 That's what many other opposition leaders later admitted - 365 00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:01,880 he was like a unifying figure in the Russian opposition. 366 00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:07,120 In February 2015, Nemtsov was walking home 367 00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:09,760 over the Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy Bridge, 368 00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,120 within sight of the Kremlin, in central Moscow. 369 00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:16,160 Despite the site's strategic importance, 370 00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:20,480 all CCTV cameras in the area had conveniently been turned off. 371 00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,680 But a distant view from a local TV station captured the hit. 372 00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:35,480 As a truck draws up alongside him, a gunman shoots Nemtsov 373 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,600 in the back before making his getaway in the circled car. 374 00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,520 I went to bed at around 11 o'clock, 375 00:41:55,560 --> 00:42:00,360 and I had a habit to switch off all my smartphones, not to be disturbed. 376 00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:06,040 My mother, for some reason, did not do that on this night. 377 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:12,320 In the midnight, I heard her crying and yelling, 378 00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,920 and I didn't understand what had happened. 379 00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:20,120 And then she came to my room and she said, er... 380 00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:22,040 "Our father is dead." 381 00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:27,720 This was the most brazen, 382 00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,320 the most high-profile political assassination in the modern 383 00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,400 history of Russia and to this day, the organisers, 384 00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:38,720 the masterminds of this crime continue to enjoy full protection 385 00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:40,920 from the highest levels of the Russian state, 386 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,440 for reasons that I think are obvious to everyone who is watching this. 387 00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,040 He mentioned that he could be killed, 388 00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:53,040 but I don't believe that he believed in it, really. 389 00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:58,800 He thought like that I was in the government in the '90s, 390 00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:04,600 I'm one of the most high-profile politicians in Russia. 391 00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:07,560 It's impossible. 392 00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,840 Whoever ordered Nemtsov's murder has never been identified. 393 00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:35,000 And five years later, 394 00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,000 as Navalny recovers from the Novichok attack in the Black Forest, 395 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,960 it looks as if whoever poisoned him is also going to get away with it. 396 00:43:47,240 --> 00:43:51,240 But Bellingcat, a loose alliance of citizen journalists, 397 00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,320 founded in a bedroom in Leicester, has other ideas. 398 00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,800 Bellingcat has an incredible record of solving global whodunnits. 399 00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:03,720 It tracked the Russian missile launcher that brought down 400 00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,200 flight MH17 over Ukraine, 401 00:44:07,240 --> 00:44:12,000 and named the Salisbury poisoners, identifying them as Russian spies. 402 00:44:14,680 --> 00:44:18,360 As Navalny recuperates, its researchers are piecing 403 00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:22,680 together the evidence to stand up a sensational accusation. 404 00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:29,960 The big picture that we got was that, yes, 405 00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,560 a murder machine exists in Russia and it is killing, 406 00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,840 or trying to kill many people, and the question is, how many? 407 00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,720 Following on from its investigation into the Salisbury poisoning 408 00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,480 of the Skripals, the Bellingcat team found 409 00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:48,440 a secret Russian chemical weapons plant called the Signal Institute. 410 00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:54,840 With mobile phone records bought on the Russian black market, 411 00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:58,440 they discovered links between senior staff there 412 00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,000 and a team within Russia's secret police, the FSB. 413 00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:10,360 The FSB has this scary second service which is 414 00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:13,000 the equivalent of Hitler's Gestapo. 415 00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,800 It is essentially the political police that goes after 416 00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:17,440 opposition figures. 417 00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:20,840 We had just completed an investigation 418 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:22,600 into the Signal Institute, 419 00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,800 which we found continued to engage in production 420 00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,520 and upgrading of chemical weapons. 421 00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,480 And what we started doing then was looking at metadata 422 00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:35,000 and call logs of people at the top of this scientific institute, 423 00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,680 and trying to find if there is any interconnection 424 00:45:38,720 --> 00:45:40,080 with somebody from the FSB. 425 00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,640 This information is important in two ways. 426 00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:48,000 First of all, of course, we understand that this person 427 00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:52,160 speaks with another and we can link two different agents together. 428 00:45:53,720 --> 00:45:57,600 And through GPS, we see where this person is located. 429 00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:01,840 And we found that one of the most frequent counterparts 430 00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:07,800 of the scientific institute guy from the FSB side was communicating 431 00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:12,920 frequently with five people that have a chemical weapons background 432 00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,880 or a medical background, or a chemical engineering background. 433 00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,480 Then we started tracing their travel. 434 00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,520 And we found that there had been significant overlaps between 435 00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,320 their travel and destinations that Alexei Navalny had travelled to. 436 00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:33,960 At the outset, we found three or four overlaps and we thought, 437 00:46:34,000 --> 00:46:36,040 well, this could still be a coincidence. 438 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,960 By tracking their flights and using facial recognition software, 439 00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:45,560 they found that members of the team were travelling under fake names 440 00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:50,240 and several were using passports with consecutive serial numbers, 441 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:53,680 a giveaway that they were produced in a batch by the FSB. 442 00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:02,240 We delved further and deeper and we found a total of more than 35 443 00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:05,640 overlaps and then we thought, OK, well, this cannot be a coincidence. 444 00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,480 This must be the team that has been tailing him, 445 00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,360 and this could not be just a political surveillance team 446 00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:15,160 because a political surveillance team would not include a doctor, 447 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,000 a chemical engineer and a chemical weapons specialist. 448 00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:22,360 Either they were creating a pattern of his movements 449 00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,080 so that they can plan an assassination operation when needed, 450 00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:29,560 or they were always on standby, waiting for a political decision 451 00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:33,480 from somebody high up, who might have decided, hmm, 452 00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,760 now is the time because he becomes a risk or a danger. 453 00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:41,840 The Bellingcat investigators then discovered a direct connection 454 00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:44,360 between the FSB poison team 455 00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,040 and Navalny's last journey, to Tomsk. 456 00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:53,040 One of the FSB unit, Alexandrov, 457 00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:58,160 he switched on his cellphone for only one second in Tomsk. 458 00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:02,240 I think he was just changing his Sim card, 459 00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,000 because he wanted to work secretly. 460 00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:09,440 But he didn't know that even if you turn on your phone, it's enough 461 00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:14,640 to send one byte of information to your telephone operator. 462 00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,720 Bellingcat's painstaking research has found enough evidence 463 00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,680 left behind by the would-be assassins to prove beyond reasonable 464 00:48:22,720 --> 00:48:26,000 doubt that there is a team of chemical killers stalking Navalny. 465 00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:31,160 And coming up, for the first time, 466 00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:35,400 the man who invented Novichok shares a shocking revelation. 467 00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:02,520 This is Shikhany, a closed military town 1,000 km southeast of Moscow. 468 00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:07,920 It's been a centre for chemical weapons research for decades. 469 00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:13,600 British intelligence believes the Novichok used on the Skripals 470 00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,400 in Salisbury was manufactured here. 471 00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:20,360 It might even have been made by this man. 472 00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:43,720 Uglev's knowledge of how Novichok works 473 00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:46,560 meant that he recognised Navalny's symptoms 474 00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:51,000 long before lab tests proved it was the poison used on him. 475 00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,760 Uglev thinks that the Russians have secretly made 476 00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:23,480 his original invention more deadly. 477 00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:37,240 This suggests Russia has not only been violating international 478 00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:42,040 chemical weapons treaties by storing and using old nerve agents, 479 00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,440 it's also been covertly developing new poisons 480 00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:47,640 as part of its assassination programme. 481 00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:52,920 Uglev also believes he knows how the Novichok was administered. 482 00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:58,200 As soon as Navalny's team in Tomsk got news of his collapse, 483 00:50:58,240 --> 00:51:01,400 they went to his hotel room to collect anything that might 484 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:04,680 be evidence of foul play and sent it to Germany. 485 00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:10,640 Novichok was later found on the outside of a water bottle, 486 00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,040 but not in the water. 487 00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:16,240 Uglev knows why. 488 00:51:55,240 --> 00:51:56,960 A secret chemical weapon... 489 00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:03,600 ..poisoned underpants and a crack team of assassins. 490 00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:05,880 What could possibly go wrong? 491 00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,520 It's six weeks before Putin's poisoners 492 00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:26,320 very nearly kill Navalny in Siberia, 493 00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,960 and Yulia and Alexei have decided they need a summer holiday. 494 00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:34,360 What better romantic getaway can there be 495 00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,880 than a week in the Baltic resort of Kaliningrad? 496 00:52:42,720 --> 00:52:48,880 Coincidentally, three FSB secret agents have exactly the same idea 497 00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:53,120 and book a vacation to the same destination at the same time. 498 00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,640 Even hit men deserve a break now and again. 499 00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:14,040 Three days into their holiday, the Navalnys are walking along the beach 500 00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:16,040 when Yulia starts to feel unwell. 501 00:53:49,240 --> 00:53:52,360 By the next morning, Yulia had recovered, 502 00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,880 so we'll never know if this was just some bad sushi 503 00:53:55,920 --> 00:53:58,960 or if the three men who were following the Navalnys - 504 00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:01,760 all with chemical weapons expertise - 505 00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:04,680 had made a botched attempt to kill Alexei 506 00:54:04,720 --> 00:54:06,960 and almost poisoned Yulia. 507 00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:10,400 We cannot be 100% sure that that's what happened, but what we do see 508 00:54:10,440 --> 00:54:14,200 is that the team was there exactly on the time when she fell ill, 509 00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:17,120 and that immediately after that, there was a spike of phone calls 510 00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:20,880 between this team and people at the Signal Institute, 511 00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:22,240 which produces Novichok. 512 00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:40,600 The Bellingcat dossier shows that a chemical weapons hit squad 513 00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:43,040 had been following Navalny for years. 514 00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:49,440 But what is it about the summer of 2020 that makes someone, somewhere 515 00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:52,360 decide that Alexei Navalny must die? 516 00:55:00,360 --> 00:55:03,040 CHANTING 517 00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:07,160 REPORTER: The March to Freedom, attended by tens of thousands today. 518 00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:10,680 This was a remarkable display of people power without fear. 519 00:55:13,400 --> 00:55:16,960 Nine days before Navalny's poisoning, Minsk, 520 00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:21,280 the capital of the former Soviet republic of Belarus, was in turmoil. 521 00:55:21,320 --> 00:55:23,480 CROWD CHEERS 522 00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:27,600 SIRENS BLARE 523 00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:28,640 SHOUTING 524 00:55:29,720 --> 00:55:31,560 EXPLOSIONS 525 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:40,040 700 km east of Moscow, and not even part of Russia, 526 00:55:40,080 --> 00:55:43,040 Belarus has been ruled for the last 25 years 527 00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:49,480 by a man many call Europe's last dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. 528 00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:52,960 As he sought a sixth term in office in 2020, 529 00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:56,120 an opposition movement seemed to appear out of nowhere. 530 00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:03,120 Its figurehead was a previously unknown English teacher, 531 00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:05,440 Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. 532 00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:07,840 CROWD CHEERS 533 00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:27,560 CROWD CHEERS 534 00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:34,800 For decades, Putin watched and supported 535 00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,840 Belarus's oppressive throwback to Soviet rule. 536 00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:44,560 Could his reaction to the protests have sealed Navalny's fate? 537 00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:49,040 What happened in Belarus may be a coincidence, 538 00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:51,560 but certainly I think there was probably a feeling 539 00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:55,400 that when you have latent discontent, 540 00:56:55,440 --> 00:56:58,680 having any outlet to express it is dangerous. 541 00:56:58,720 --> 00:57:00,520 And a charismatic politician, 542 00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:04,120 with a network of dedicated campaigners 543 00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:07,120 in cities across the country, 544 00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:10,240 if he is someone that, at the crisis moment, pops up 545 00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,320 and is offering an alternative, I think that's very dangerous. 546 00:57:13,360 --> 00:57:16,800 REPORTER: For the past week, this country has been the latest arena 547 00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:20,360 in the tussle between autocracy and democracy. 548 00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:25,160 As the protesters in Belarus threatened to topple their leader, 549 00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:28,360 the question in the Kremlin of what to do about Navalny 550 00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:30,120 became increasingly urgent. 551 00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:33,760 I think that Vladimir Putin believed that 552 00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:36,520 this is a very, very likely possibility. 553 00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:40,360 And he understood that, of course, Navalny would be the person who 554 00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:44,800 would bring hundreds of thousands of people in Russia to the streets. 555 00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:47,560 REPORTER: The revolution is in seductive mode. 556 00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:50,560 And who knows if the soldiers' awkward blushes 557 00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:53,200 will translate into a failure to fire? 558 00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,560 They were hugely unnerved by the protests. 559 00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:02,440 And he saw it as an omen of similar things coming to Russia. 560 00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,640 So, the connections were not hard to build. 561 00:58:06,160 --> 00:58:08,760 With Navalny on his way to Siberia, 562 00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:12,960 the order went out to eliminate Putin's turbulent tormentor. 563 00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:19,920 But ultimately, the quick decisions of a pilot who wasn't in on the plot 564 00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:23,320 and paramedics who were just trying to save a life 565 00:58:23,360 --> 00:58:26,280 led to yet another botched assassination. 566 00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:30,520 And from his German retreat, 567 00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:34,080 Navalny - armed with Bellingcat's research - 568 00:58:34,120 --> 00:58:38,160 begins to taunt Putin and his team of poisoners. 569 00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:01,280 It's one thing to understand something intellectually, 570 00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:07,240 as it were, and it's quite another to be shown the faces and names 571 00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,160 of the actual people who tried to kill me. 572 00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:12,560 I was looking at the photographs, 573 00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:14,320 and I was seeing just normal, ordinary faces - 574 00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:16,920 you know, the kind that I would see here on the streets of Moscow 575 00:59:16,960 --> 00:59:21,120 every single day. And yet these people are professional murderers 576 00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:23,600 in the employment of the state. 577 00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:24,840 I was thinking to myself, 578 00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:27,600 "What do these people talk about at the family dinner table?" 579 00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:29,000 What do their kids ask them about - 580 00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:31,240 "How many people did you poison today, Daddy?" 581 00:59:32,520 --> 00:59:33,920 It's mind-boggling. 582 00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:38,640 REPORTER: We enter a rundown apartment building 583 00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:42,640 on the outskirts of Moscow where operative Oleg Tayakin lives. 584 00:59:43,680 --> 00:59:47,520 With the help of Bellingcat and Navalny, a journalist from CNN 585 00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:50,240 decides to track down one of the alleged assassins. 586 00:59:51,640 --> 00:59:54,240 My name's Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN. 587 00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:56,360 Can I ask you a couple of questions? 588 00:59:56,400 --> 00:59:59,480 No surprise that Mr Tayakin didn't want to chat. 589 01:00:01,120 --> 01:00:04,160 But his boss, the president, was more forthcoming. 590 01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:26,640 He admitted that there had been FSB people tailing Navalny. 591 01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:29,560 Interestingly enough, he also said, 592 01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:33,720 "If we had tried to poison him, we would have finished the job," 593 01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:36,760 which is one of the most shocking things to come from a head of state, 594 01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:41,080 because he did not even try to argue that "We don't kill people." 595 01:00:41,120 --> 01:00:44,840 He just said, "If we want to kill people, we do it properly." 596 01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,720 As 2020 draws to a close, 597 01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:52,960 Navalny has another surprise lined up for the president. 598 01:01:20,160 --> 01:01:23,920 Navalny's newest video blows apart Putin's claim 599 01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:27,600 that if the FSB had been involved, they'd have done the job properly 600 01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:29,760 and Alexei would be dead. 601 01:01:37,120 --> 01:01:41,280 Navalny calls up one of the team involved in the poisoning, 602 01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:45,520 posing as the assistant to one of Putin's most senior advisers. 603 01:03:20,120 --> 01:03:23,440 For a long time, I thought, "There's no way that this guy wouldn't have 604 01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:27,680 "recognised Alexei's voice. There's no way that he's not fooling us." 605 01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,840 Probably at any given moment in time, we will have the FSB 606 01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:36,320 break down the door in this German house we were in and just kill us. 607 01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:12,680 And then I thought, "Well, this is real, this is happening. 608 01:04:12,720 --> 01:04:15,840 "The guy really thinks he's talking to the aide to the boss." 609 01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:17,920 And he's spilling the beans in real time. 610 01:04:55,480 --> 01:04:57,440 It's just unbelievable. 611 01:04:57,480 --> 01:05:01,960 I mean, I assume it's the first time in the history of criminality 612 01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:05,840 that the alleged murderers actually admitted to the victim 613 01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:07,440 that they tried to kill him, 614 01:05:07,480 --> 01:05:10,840 describing exactly how they did it and where they put the Novichok. 615 01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:36,800 Like me and you, we thought Russian secret services 616 01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:40,520 are professional and they're scary. 617 01:05:40,560 --> 01:05:45,720 The underpants story created a stream of memes 618 01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:49,120 that make fun of the Kremlin, but also of secret services, 619 01:05:49,160 --> 01:05:53,120 and equate them with underpants washers, underpants cleaners, 620 01:05:53,160 --> 01:05:54,880 underpants poisoners. 621 01:05:54,920 --> 01:05:57,320 And this is probably the worst damage 622 01:05:57,360 --> 01:06:00,640 done to the Russian secret services that I have seen in my career. 623 01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:38,520 After Navalny throws his latest YouTube custard pie 624 01:06:38,560 --> 01:06:41,720 at Putin from the relative safety of Germany, 625 01:06:41,760 --> 01:06:44,840 people start to wonder if he'll ever return to Russia. 626 01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:49,240 Some of his supporters want him to stay in the West, 627 01:06:49,280 --> 01:06:52,720 part of the ever-expanding Russian opposition-in-exile. 628 01:06:56,680 --> 01:06:59,600 But on the 13th of January, 2021, 629 01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:03,440 Navalny ends the speculation - he's going home. 630 01:07:05,480 --> 01:07:07,560 I challenged him whether that was smart, 631 01:07:07,600 --> 01:07:11,480 whether that was expedient, and he said it doesn't matter. 632 01:07:11,520 --> 01:07:15,560 He said, I have to return to Russia because the alternative means 633 01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:21,080 soon I will be just an emigre who's just yelling at Russia. 634 01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:26,360 I need to be where my followers are. I need to be there. 635 01:08:01,200 --> 01:08:04,440 Aleksei and Yulia board a flight to Moscow. 636 01:08:04,480 --> 01:08:07,680 The plane is packed with journalists. 637 01:08:07,720 --> 01:08:11,720 The master of social media is stage managing his return 638 01:08:11,760 --> 01:08:13,480 for maximum impact. 639 01:08:25,440 --> 01:08:29,240 He's even chosen a Russian airline called Pobeda, meaning Victory. 640 01:08:31,400 --> 01:08:35,440 Seated a few rows behind the Navalnys is Arkady Ostrovsky. 641 01:08:37,400 --> 01:08:40,720 I knew this was a big political act. 642 01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:44,400 It was no ordinary flight and, with real history, 643 01:08:44,440 --> 01:08:48,840 you sensed it was happening there and then. 644 01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:51,960 It's a flight carrying him back into politics and turning him 645 01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:53,800 into sort of a mythical figure. 646 01:09:02,280 --> 01:09:05,840 Hundreds of supporters gather at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport 647 01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:07,360 to welcome their hero home. 648 01:09:08,640 --> 01:09:12,240 But at the last moment, the flight is diverted to another 649 01:09:12,280 --> 01:09:15,560 airport where a rather different group is waiting for him. 650 01:09:29,400 --> 01:09:32,520 He's arrested as he clears passport control 651 01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:35,920 and spirited away to a police station. 652 01:09:35,960 --> 01:09:38,920 He's charged with violating the terms of his parole 653 01:09:38,960 --> 01:09:43,200 from 2014 by not reporting immediately to the authorities 654 01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:46,280 in Russia on his discharge from hospital in Germany. 655 01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:25,840 With Navalny behind bars and facing a lengthy prison sentence, 656 01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:28,360 Putin seems to be holding all the aces. 657 01:10:29,800 --> 01:10:33,680 But Aleksei still has at least one more card up his sleeve, 658 01:10:33,720 --> 01:10:38,040 and it's something Vladimir Putin will never forget or forgive. 659 01:10:55,800 --> 01:10:59,760 Awaiting trial inside one of Russia's toughest prisons, 660 01:10:59,800 --> 01:11:04,640 Matrosskaya Tishina, some people would be cowed. 661 01:11:04,680 --> 01:11:06,080 Not Alexei Navalny. 662 01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:08,480 Via his lawyers, 663 01:11:08,520 --> 01:11:13,160 he greenlights the release of his most audacious video yet. 664 01:11:13,200 --> 01:11:16,080 His team have been secretly working on it for months. 665 01:11:27,760 --> 01:11:32,360 Navalny is about to be sent away for a long time, 666 01:11:32,400 --> 01:11:36,840 and he lobs this missile attack at the Kremlin from behind bars. 667 01:12:00,080 --> 01:12:03,040 In ten days, the film - Putin's Palace - 668 01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:06,120 racks up over 100 million views. 669 01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:09,920 By February, it's been seen by a quarter 670 01:12:09,960 --> 01:12:11,920 of Russia's adult population. 671 01:12:13,400 --> 01:12:17,600 It combines biting satire with forensic investigation, 672 01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:20,680 in a direct attack on Vladimir Putin. 673 01:12:28,880 --> 01:12:32,360 For many people across Russia, this was like a big eye-opener. 674 01:12:36,760 --> 01:12:41,040 It reveals the existence of a secret palace on the Black Sea 675 01:12:41,080 --> 01:12:44,160 that allegedly belongs to the Russian President. 676 01:12:45,920 --> 01:12:50,040 Putin, for years, has maintained this ascetic image, you know, 677 01:12:50,080 --> 01:12:52,880 like he only works for Russia 24/7 678 01:12:52,920 --> 01:12:56,720 and he doesn't care about riches, material things, you know? 679 01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:31,520 Putin's approval rating has a six percentage point dip 680 01:13:31,560 --> 01:13:34,720 in three, four weeks after the movie was released. 681 01:13:41,720 --> 01:13:44,200 CASH REGISTER DINGS 682 01:13:48,320 --> 01:13:51,520 People actually realised that this is essentially a maniac 683 01:13:51,560 --> 01:13:53,560 preoccupied with luxury. 684 01:13:55,240 --> 01:13:58,760 As damaging as the revelations of personal greed 685 01:13:58,800 --> 01:14:01,520 are the details about the palace itself. 686 01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:09,720 Gold toilet brushes worth 700 euros each, 687 01:14:09,760 --> 01:14:12,080 a retractable stripper pole 688 01:14:12,120 --> 01:14:15,600 and a room for playing with toy cars. 689 01:14:37,320 --> 01:14:41,360 The film questions not just Putin's greed but his sanity. 690 01:14:58,480 --> 01:15:03,520 Putin denies he has any connection to the palace, let alone owns it. 691 01:15:06,200 --> 01:15:11,000 Then at the end of January 2021, his former judo sparring partner, 692 01:15:11,040 --> 01:15:16,240 the oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, steps forward to claim that it's his. 693 01:15:40,520 --> 01:15:44,040 With just two weeks to go before Navalny is due in court 694 01:15:44,080 --> 01:15:48,280 for sentencing, this deliberate baiting of Putin 695 01:15:48,320 --> 01:15:51,920 seems calculated to ensure he will become a martyr. 696 01:16:01,200 --> 01:16:04,680 Far away from the excess of Putin's palace, 697 01:16:04,720 --> 01:16:08,680 the next scene in the battle between Navalny and the Kremlin 698 01:16:08,720 --> 01:16:11,880 plays out in a dingy Moscow courtroom. 699 01:16:31,840 --> 01:16:34,160 The outcome is never in doubt. 700 01:16:35,840 --> 01:16:39,280 Navalny is sentenced to three and a half years in prison 701 01:16:39,320 --> 01:16:42,080 for failing to comply with the terms of his parole. 702 01:16:43,840 --> 01:16:45,440 Before he's led away, 703 01:16:45,480 --> 01:16:49,240 he makes an impassioned speech that's secretly recorded, 704 01:16:49,280 --> 01:16:52,600 mocking his would-be assassins and their master. 705 01:17:26,800 --> 01:17:30,840 He saves his final gesture for his wife, Yulia. 706 01:17:32,040 --> 01:17:35,880 There is always this double optic with Navalny. 707 01:17:35,920 --> 01:17:39,920 He is talking to the nation, he is talking to all his supporters. 708 01:17:40,960 --> 01:17:43,240 But actually, he is talking and addressing himself 709 01:17:43,280 --> 01:17:44,760 to Yulia Navalnaya. 710 01:17:46,360 --> 01:17:47,840 And then they are separated 711 01:17:47,880 --> 01:17:52,040 and he is standing behind the bulletproof glass in this cage, 712 01:17:52,080 --> 01:17:55,160 and he makes the heart symbol with his hands. 713 01:18:14,320 --> 01:18:18,560 Navalny is moved to Pokrov Penal Colony No 2, 714 01:18:18,600 --> 01:18:21,520 100 km east of Moscow. 715 01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:24,400 THEY CHANT 716 01:18:24,440 --> 01:18:27,360 It's one of Russia's harshest prisons. 717 01:18:27,400 --> 01:18:30,720 Konstantin Kotov spent four long years here, 718 01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:33,920 sentenced for taking part in political rallies. 719 01:19:16,960 --> 01:19:20,480 Navalny gets Instagram messages out to his supporters 720 01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:21,600 through his lawyers. 721 01:19:24,680 --> 01:19:27,200 But as the prison regime takes its toll, 722 01:19:27,240 --> 01:19:30,800 the effects of the Novichok mean his health starts to fail. 723 01:19:34,680 --> 01:19:37,640 The authorities refuse to take him to hospital. 724 01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:44,040 He spends 24 days on hunger strike, demanding better health care. 725 01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:14,360 What we see now is that he's in jail, 726 01:20:14,400 --> 01:20:18,080 with a seriously deteriorating medical condition. 727 01:20:18,120 --> 01:20:21,560 Some of the symptoms we see are neurological symptoms. 728 01:20:21,600 --> 01:20:23,680 He doesn't feel his right leg. 729 01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:26,160 He cannot control the muscles of his right leg. 730 01:20:26,200 --> 01:20:29,040 But because the Russian authorities refused to recognise 731 01:20:29,080 --> 01:20:31,160 he was poisoned in the first place, 732 01:20:31,200 --> 01:20:34,440 doctors are not even allowed to take that previous poisoning into account 733 01:20:34,480 --> 01:20:37,280 when they are diagnosing what's wrong with him now. 734 01:20:37,320 --> 01:20:40,280 And this itself is criminal and can be fatal. 735 01:20:42,720 --> 01:20:45,240 The months since Navalny's imprisonment 736 01:20:45,280 --> 01:20:48,240 have seen Russia face deepening oppression. 737 01:20:49,440 --> 01:20:52,840 In June, Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, 738 01:20:52,880 --> 01:20:54,760 Fond Borby s Korruptsiyey, 739 01:20:54,800 --> 01:20:57,880 was designated an extremist organisation, 740 01:20:57,920 --> 01:21:01,360 making it equivalent to Al-Qaeda and Isis. 741 01:21:01,400 --> 01:21:05,280 Supporting Navalny in any way can now get you arrested. 742 01:21:06,840 --> 01:21:11,760 His allies had hoped to use tactical voting to beat Putin's party, 743 01:21:11,800 --> 01:21:15,600 United Russia, in September's elections. 744 01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:18,960 Now, they're just hoping to stay out of prison. 745 01:21:38,400 --> 01:21:41,200 SHOUTING ON VIDEO 746 01:21:41,240 --> 01:21:43,760 Over the course of making this film, 747 01:21:43,800 --> 01:21:47,080 our contributors have been outlawed and imprisoned. 748 01:21:48,520 --> 01:21:52,280 In Tomsk, Ksenia Fadeeva has been arrested twice 749 01:21:52,320 --> 01:21:54,240 and had her computers seized. 750 01:21:56,040 --> 01:21:58,720 Roman Dobrokhotov's home was raided by the police, 751 01:21:58,760 --> 01:22:00,560 and he was taken in for questioning. 752 01:22:02,440 --> 01:22:05,840 Vladimir Milov has chosen to go into exile in Latvia. 753 01:22:07,720 --> 01:22:10,920 Kira Yarmysh was put under nightly house arrest 754 01:22:10,960 --> 01:22:13,160 and has now gone into exile in Finland. 755 01:22:14,720 --> 01:22:17,040 Politician Ilya Yashin has been barred 756 01:22:17,080 --> 01:22:18,880 from contesting future elections. 757 01:22:20,080 --> 01:22:25,000 Dr Anastasia Vasilyeva was arrested on September 1. 758 01:22:25,040 --> 01:22:28,440 And in Moscow, police have used hacked data 759 01:22:28,480 --> 01:22:32,200 to find and question Navalny's low-level supporters, 760 01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:35,080 rounding them up in alphabetical order. 761 01:22:38,840 --> 01:22:41,680 Though they are both children of the Soviet Union, 762 01:22:41,720 --> 01:22:46,520 Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny have radically opposing visions 763 01:22:46,560 --> 01:22:48,960 for Russia and its place in the world. 764 01:23:22,120 --> 01:23:25,720 The poisoning and imprisonment of Alexei Navalny 765 01:23:25,760 --> 01:23:28,360 means Vladimir Putin appears to have won. 766 01:23:30,600 --> 01:23:33,720 Navalny's organisation has been reduced to rubble. 767 01:23:38,640 --> 01:23:41,320 And yet the attempt to destroy Navalny 768 01:23:41,360 --> 01:23:46,320 has drawn the eyes of the world to Putin's most persistent critic. 769 01:23:55,200 --> 01:23:58,200 We know from Russia's own history 770 01:23:58,240 --> 01:24:02,560 that major political change usually comes like this, 771 01:24:02,600 --> 01:24:04,680 suddenly and unexpectedly. 772 01:24:04,720 --> 01:24:07,920 And I myself am old enough to remember that no-one 773 01:24:07,960 --> 01:24:12,320 at the beginning of August of 1991 predicted that the Soviet regime 774 01:24:12,360 --> 01:24:15,240 would not exist by the end of the month 775 01:24:15,280 --> 01:24:20,120 and that one of the most repressive and horrific totalitarian systems 776 01:24:20,160 --> 01:24:25,280 in the history of humanity will go down in three days. 777 01:24:25,320 --> 01:24:27,240 This is how things happen in Russia. 778 01:24:27,280 --> 01:24:30,240 None of us can tell exactly when or how 779 01:24:30,280 --> 01:24:32,120 political change is going to come. 780 01:24:32,160 --> 01:24:34,800 The only thing we know is that it will - 781 01:24:34,840 --> 01:24:36,600 because nothing is forever. 782 01:24:36,640 --> 01:24:39,000 And Vladimir Putin is not going to be an exception. 783 01:24:39,040 --> 01:24:41,560 His regime is not going to be an exception. 784 01:24:44,120 --> 01:24:47,760 Both Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny want to be remembered 785 01:24:47,800 --> 01:24:52,000 as the man who defined 21st-century Russia. 786 01:24:52,040 --> 01:24:54,040 Only one of them can succeed. 787 01:24:55,520 --> 01:24:59,760 Alexei Navalny will become President of the Russian Federation. 788 01:24:59,800 --> 01:25:03,800 He will become the leader who is going to turn Russia 789 01:25:03,840 --> 01:25:06,000 back on its democratic path. 790 01:25:07,920 --> 01:25:11,680 On an aeroplane one morning in August 2020, 791 01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:15,000 Alexei Navalny stared death in the face. 792 01:25:16,840 --> 01:25:19,520 He has survived...for now. 793 01:25:21,320 --> 01:25:23,600 I think it's a good thing. 794 01:25:23,640 --> 01:25:28,760 It's very useful for a politician, maybe, facing death once. 795 01:25:31,280 --> 01:25:37,040 Maybe ironically, I became kind of more human after this facing death. 796 01:26:10,200 --> 01:26:15,440 Subtitles by Red Bee Media