By Lucy Komisar
Feb 17, 2026

According to the NYTimes, “After Mr. Navalny’s 2020 poisoning, he released a video of himself — posing as an aide to a senior Russian security official — extracting a confession from one of his would-be assassins, essentially confirming the involvement of the Russian intelligence services. He was told the poison had been planted in his underwear at his hotel sometime before he boarded the plane.”

But that alleged phone call “confession” is contradicted by facts. No evidence it ever occurred. Read further about how the story was invented. Which makes me doubtful that the authors (Anton Troianovski, Nataliya Vasilyeva and Lynsey Chutel) did anything besides write down what they were told. Including the frog story which is described only as “extremely likely.”

That the Times lies or just takes dictation about the “phone call” makes it obvious that it didn’t bother to find evidence about the “killer frog” which is like WMD, the Gulf of Tonkin attack, and numerous other invented stories aimed at stirring up the public to support U.S. military actions. Journalism is not stenography. Nor should it be in the service of the Deep State.

Here are the facts. Most important is the date of that alleged phone call, which evidence suggests never took place. Ronald Thomas West, who identifies as a U.S. Special Forces veteran working in Europe, writes, with irony:

West says, “The poisoning happened on 20 August, the ‘hoax call’ is made on 14 December, and released by Bellingcat on 21 December. Now, wait a minute. The context of the call, a desperate demand for answers of what went wrong (Navalny didn’t die) for a report to higher up authority, is something you would expect within the first 48 hours, not nearly three months later. By the time this call was made, that dust should have settled and been vacuumed up by Russia’s intelligence services, everyone would have been debriefed by this time, including the target of the hoax call.”

And examine the details below.

Those who made the film have understood the psychology of manipulating audiences. Slowly you bring them into a secret scam to be played on the bad guys. In this one, it starts with Navalny putting on a body mike. Why? He is not going somewhere to secretly record someone. Only his own team is in the room. The real recording microphone is off camera, where the film audience can’t see it. 

But the body mike is a special effect, it’s a dramatist’s stage trick. Click the arrow. Navalny speaks to the camera: “Now I’m totally feel like I’m an undercover agent, with the wired up.” Does the audience know they are the butt of a theatrical joke?

Navalny calls three “FSB” agents. This is a setup for a veracity diversion, a factoid – that’s a seeming truth disguising a fake. We can be sure of this now, because he says to each of them, “I am Navalny; why do you want to kill me?” And the fake people hang up. What is the point of that? It’s to convince the audience of Navalny’s film production that the FSB was being telephoned. The voices are not real, they sound the same – either computer generated or acted by a professional mimic.

But then there’s his pièce de résistance, the interview with “the scientist” whom Grozev tells Navalny to call, because he will be more likely to talk than the regular FSB agents.

Navalny declares (as translated), “Konstantin Borisovich, hello my name is Ustinov Maxim Sergeyevich. I am Nikolay Platonovich’s assistant.” He says, “I need ten minutes of your time …will probably ask you later for a report …but I am now making a report for Nikolay Platonovich … what went wrong with us in Tomsk…why did the Navalny operation fail?”

According to Bellingcat, (the real) Kudryavtsev worked at the Ministry of Defense biological security research center and is a specialist in chemical and biological weapons. Supposedly not so stupid.

The talkative “Konstantin” says, “I would rate the job as well done. We did it just as planned, the way we rehearsed it many times. But when the flight made an emergency landing the situation changed, not in our favor….The medics on the ground acted right away. They injected him with an antidote of some sort. So it seems the dose was underestimated. Our calculations were good, we even applied extra.”

Navalny was questioned by the Berlin Staatsanwaltschaft (District Attorney) on December 17, 2020. Did he tell them about the phone call to Konstantin Kudryavtsev, which allegedly took place on December 14?

The office confirmed the interrogation, but when I sent a link to Navalny’s claims about the December 14th “call” three days earlier, a spokesman said they could not comment further.

There are key clues to the film’s fabrications. They deal with dates and timing which are not subject to dispute: the dangers of Novichok, the date of “Kudryavstev’s” “cleaning” in Omsk, and the date of the phone calls.

The Timing of Kudryavtsev’s trip and “cleaning”

CNN declares that “Kudryavtsev” flies from Moscow to Omsk on August 25, five days after the event, to take possession of Navalny’s clothes and “clean” them. It displays a visual of a flight from Moscow. But the FSB would have known of the diversion to Omsk August 20^th. Would it have waited five days to send an agent there?

Were the underpants still considered dangerous? Did hospital workers who undressed Navalny get sick? Many people were exposed to Navalny and his deadly underpants, but not one has been reported to have fallen ill. The passengers who attended him in the plane and who flew on to Moscow have not reported medical problems. (For how Novichok affects people, see data from a university research scientist and a Food and Chemical Toxicology paper.)

The film “Kudryavtsev” voice says, “When we arrived [in Omsk], they gave [the underpants] to us, the local Omsk guys brought [them] with the police.” Did any police fall ill?

“Kudryavstev” says, “When we finished working on them everything was clean.” He explains that solutions were applied, “so that there were no traces left on the clothes.” CNN, in its video, has “Kudryavtsev” saying that he also cleaned Navalny’s pants, not mentioned in the film. Navalny is shown in Berlin holding the underpants. Did the Omsk police ship the “decontaminated” item to Germany?

There are more problems with this story. There is conflicting information about whether Navalny’s underpants remained in Omsk.

Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh posted a tweet August 20, 2020 with the text: “Julia took Alexei’s things with her. She said that she did not allow them to be confiscated.” However, The Guardian reported September 21 that Navalny “demanded that Moscow return his clothes.” At any rate, the Charité Hospital said it did not test the water bottles or clothing.

Most important is the date of the phone call.

Ronald Thomas West, who identifies as a U.S. Special Forces veteran working in Europe, writes, with irony:

West says, “ The poisoning happened on 20 August, the ‘hoax call’ is made on 14 December, and released by Bellingcat on 21 December. Now, wait a minute. The context of the call, a desperate demand for answers of what went wrong (Navalny didn’t die) for a report to higher up authority, is something you would expect within the first 48 hours, not nearly three months later. By the time this call was made, that dust should have settled and been vacuumed up by Russia’s intelligence services, everyone would have been debriefed by this time, including the target of the hoax call.”

The Trojan Horse

Maya Daisy Hawke, the film’s co-editor, makes an unusual admission on her website. She said “It’s the best thing I ever worked on; the highlight of my career,” and adds, “Navalny was a Trojan horse.” I emailed her and asked what she meant, pointing out that Merriam-Webster defines Trojan horse as “someone or something intended to defeat or subvert from within usually by deceptive means.” She walked it back and said, “They were hastily chosen words on a personal social media post.” She declined further comment and told me to contact the film’s publicist. I did. Charlie Olsky of Cineticmedia also declined to answer questions.

For the full story on Navalny, from anti-Muslim nationalist to U.S.-trained self-anointed opposition to the Russian government, go here.

Journalist John Helmer has published a story clearly refuting the frog toxin story. He calls it Frogichok. Following on the West’s Novichok disinformation.

Go here. Excerpts below:

To start with this is NOT a toxin that only the Russian have, or even that they had it first. I am skipping the stuff about the frogs eating certain insects. Helmer writes:

The Americans ^[4] came first in synthesizing and stocking epibatidine, then the British ^[5].  More Americans followed in 1993 ^[6].  The Chinese succeeded in their synthesis methodology at a university in Virginia, also in 1993 ^[7].  The Russians were twenty years late. The first openly reported synthesis of the poison by Russian researchers was announced in 2013 ^[8

The allegation by five governments – the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands –…“only the Russian state had the combined means, motive and disregard for international law to carry out the attacks” is false.

The state chemical warfare establishments of the US and UK had not only synthesized epibatidine more than a decade before the Russians, but they had accumulated substantial stocks for battlefield antidote testing, as well as for commercial production of painkillers.…

Yulia Navalnaya’s presentations of the poisoning allegation confirm that she and the government agencies behind her have been preparing it for more than six months at laboratories they refuse to identify, and with evidence of tissue samples which, after two years, are forensically worthless. That means there is no proof that Navalny’s samples are genuine – that they have not been tampered with….

In September 2025, Yulia Navalnaya called a press conference to announce that post-mortem samples of Navalny tissues had been taken in February 2024, and then sent abroad for testing. Nineteen months later, she claimed ^[14] that “laboratories in at least two countries independently”  —   — Minute 11:53 – had “concluded” that the cause of Navalny’s death was poison…

Nineteen months after Navalny’s death is an unusually long time for forensic evidence of this type to materialise without the chain of custody required in Anglo-American courts to be admitted in evidence.  Navalnaya declared: “I demand that the laboratories that conducted the analyses publish their results”.

Another five months have elapsed, and there is no disclosure either by Navalnaya or her supporting governments of the names of the laboratories or of their result reports.

So why would you believe the claims of these governments accepted without evidence by the NYTimes or other western media?

LK: I asked the three Times writers to comment on this article, said I would post their replies. No response. Nor do I expected any western corporate media to deal truthfully with this story.

Update THE NEW NAVALNY POISON – THIS SWEDISH DISINFORMATION IS A BRITISH LIE

By John Helmer, Feb 23, 2026
  @bears_with ^[2]

The Swedish Government has admitted it has no direct evidence of the cause of Alexei  Navalny’s death – only British Government hearsay.

In a series of email exchanges last week, the Swedish Foreign Ministry has revealed that its military laboratories and scientific establishments have not received post-mortem samples of Navalny’s tissues. There has been no Swedish analysis of the toxicology of those samples. There is no Swedish documentation proving in the toxicology of the Navalny samples epibatidine poisoning as the cause of Navalny’s death on February 16, 2024.

Forensically speaking, the Swedish Government does not know — cannot know — if Navalny died of natural causes or was poisoned to death. Ten days ago, however, on February 14, the Swedish Government signed with four other states – UK, Germany, France and The Netherlands – an announcement of fact and allegation of murder it had no intention to verify.   

“The UK, Sweden, France, Germany and The Netherlands are confident [sic] that Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a lethal toxin,” the statement declared ^[3].  “This is the conclusion [sic] of our Governments based on analyses [sic] of samples from Alexei Navalny. These analyses have conclusively [sic] confirmed the presence of epibatidine. Epibatidine is a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. It is not found naturally in Russia. Russia claimed that Navalny died of natural causes. But given the toxicity of epibatidine and reported symptoms [sic], poisoning was highly likely the cause of his death. Navalny died while held in prison, meaning Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him.”

Sic is the old Latin adverb manuscript which editors traditionally used to mark an original word or term that applied to a surprising claim, faulty reasoning, fabrication,  or falsehood which the reader might otherwise interpret as a mistake of transcription. No mistake here by the Swedes – this wording is their cover for not being caught at a provable lie.

An investigation in Stockholm by lawyer Mats Nilsson, based on Swedish freedom of information law, has produced the record to show that the only conclusion the Swedish Government has reached is to accept that Porton Down, the British Government’s chemical warfare laboratory, which synthesized epibatidine at least a decade ago and has accumulated operational stocks since then, has reported the discovery of that poison in the Navalny samples.

However, the British Government has not transferred these samples to Sweden for investigation. The Swedish Government’s chemical warfare laboratory ^[4] at Umeå  does not confirm it has either received the samples, or analysed them, or reported any findings.

Instead, a series of emailed answers from the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s Disarmament Non-proliferation and Export Control (NIS) Unit has repeated the February 14 joint statement allegations. When requested to substantiate them, the Ministry has added a series of disclaimers: “we will not comment on the details regarding how the samples were obtained. What we can say is that we have high confidence in the integrity of the process… We will not comment on the details of the entities involved in the forensic investigation… We will not comment on the exact details of the identification process.   We will not comment on the details regarding how the samples from Navalny were obtained. What we can say is that we have high confidence in the integrity of the chain of custody.”

Pressed to clarify how, with these disclaimers, the Swedish  Government had drawn its conclusion that Navalny had been poisoned by epibatidine, the Foreign Ministry acknowledged there have been no Swedish laboratory analyses or reports. “Such documents are not kept by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”, an anonymous official speaking for the Ministry said.

The Foreign Ministry has also attempted to conceal that Porton Down synthesized and stocked epibatidine long before the Russians. “Synthetic routes to epibatidine can be found in open sources and several methods have been published. Open source information has also showed that at least two entities connected to the Russian chemical weapons programme have studied epibatidine since 2013.” The Swedish Foreign Ministry has intentionally omitted that the first British synthetic production of the poison was reported twenty years before, in 1993 ^[5].  American synthesis had occurred ^[6] at least a decade earlier.  

The only explicit admission is that the Swedish Government has “high confidence in the integrity” of the British Government’s chemical warfare laboratory at Porton Down but wants to conceal the role which that laboratory has played in manufacturing a new Russian poison to fool the world — exactly as the Novichok story was fabricated seven years ago.