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· The State Scientific Research Institute for Organic Chemistry and Technology (GosNIIOKhT), which is believed to have developed Novichok-type nerve agents at one of its branches during the Soviet period
· The Official Journal of the European Union says that Alexey Navalny’s poisoning “was only possible with the consent of the Presidential Executive Office” and with the involvement of the Russian FSB. EU officials point to a variety of circumstances that allowed them to come to this conclusion:
According to the EU, there is a dedicated task force inside the Presidential Executive Office working “to counter Alexey Navalny’s influence in Russian society including through operations meant to discredit him” (the Kremlin denies the existence of such a group).
· State and judicial actors in Russia have persecuted and repressed Navalny systematically due to his political activities
· FSB officers were monitoring Navalny during his trip to Siberia, including at the time of his poisoning
· The Novichok-type nerve agent used to poison Navalny is “accessible only to State authorities in the Russian Federation”
· The European Union also offered detailed explanations as to why it imposed sanctions in the case of each individual specifically, underscoring that poisoning someone with a Novichok-type nerve agent “constitutes a use of chemical weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention.”
2.10 ​ ​Khabarovsk protests pass 100 days
The protests in Khabarovsk against the arrest of former local governor Sergei Furgal have now been ongoing for a symbolic 100 consecutive days as of October 21, ​a remarkable outlier in the history of Putin era protests.
A change of dynamic happened during the October 10 march which, for the first time, saw a crackdown by riot troops and the arrest of about 30 people. None of the protests since July (except one on September 12) were sanctioned by local authorities, but police had remained on the sidelines up to that point.
So what changed? A key factor is that the numbers of protesters significantly dwindled since around 30,000 people first took to the streets on July 11. Protesters reportedly numbered around 2,000 on October 17. The newly-appointed acting governor Mikhail Degtiarev couldn’t really afford to break up the protests during the summer, and along with the presidential administration in Moscow, decided to wait them out. They’ve decided that the movement is now small enough that repression has become a viable tactic.
Whatever happens next, the conflict will leave traces. The driving force of the protest movement in Khabarovsk might have been inherently local—the arrest of the regional governor. But it did not develop in the typical and
18 ​RUSSIA Country Report​ November 2020 www.intellinews.com