1/8 There is a considerable difference between the #Navalny case and previous poisonings where Russia was accused. Alexander Litvinenko & Sergei Skripal were exiles poisoned in a foreign country (the UK) and hardly known to anyone in Russia or abroad before the attacks.
2/8 Navalny is very well known both inside and outside Russia, and was poisoned on Russian soil. The others were figures from the past, he is a figure from the present, if not the future
3/8 Litvinenko & Skripal were former Russian security service members and could be seen by the special services as traitors who should be punished.
4/8 Navalny is an opposition figure who acts openly. His poisoning eliminates the division previously admitted by Putin between enemies and traitors, according to which enemies should be treated with respect.
5/8 If this difference has gone, it means that the regime—or the most hardline parts of it—feel more endangered than ever.
6/8 The fact that the poisoning happened deep inside Russia undermines the usual conspiracy theories that it was carried out by enemies of Russia to damage its relations with the West.
7/8 Unlike the shootings of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the attack against Navalny was too sophisticated to be ascribed to disobedient proxy actors such as angry Chechen patriots.
8/8 But unlike Nemtsov's murder, it hasn’t yet provoked a massive public reaction in Russia. This is one of the calculated differences between a brutal classical political murder and more sophisticated poisoning.
