Alexei Navalny was tailed not only by FSB agents, but also by private detectives from the Ryazan-based Ten (Shadow) agency, Dossier Center has learned. The journalists counted at least six matches for the travel routes taken by the detectives and by Navalny, his family and colleagues.
In particular, the PIs accompanied Navalny to Kaliningrad (July 3, 2020), where he traveled on vacation with his wife Yulia. A day before Navalny's arrival in Kaliningrad, four men arrived there according to the flight data: Alexander Borzunov, Alexander Zarubin, Andrei Malikov and Vyacheslav Romashin. All of them are employees of the Ten detective agency in Ryazan, Dossier Center points out. The publication says it was during that trip that Yulia Navalny felt ill (Alexei Navalny claimed the symptoms were similar to what he himself experienced after being poisoned with Novichok), and later it turned out that, as in many other instances, Navalny was also accompanied on that trip by the FSB team of poisoners.
These same detectives followed Navalny and the Anti-Corruption Foundation employee Maria Pevchikh to Novosibirsk shortly before the politician's poisoning and probably handed the footage they shot there to REN TV, Dossier Center notes.
In January 2019, when Navalny, together with his wife and children, flew to Thailand on vacation, they noticed surveillance in the hotel:
«Two dudes flew with us from Moscow. At the airport they were met by more dudes. This morning they are sitting in the lobby of our hotel and filming us with a video recorder. Another one is sitting there watching the cab rank. What's this all about? Is it for the sake of a headline story Notorious oppositionist ate three tom yum servings and rode around in a tuk-tuk with style?« Navalny wrote in his blog.
«Apparently, the «dudes» who met the «moviemakers» at the airport were Borzunov and Zarubin. The former flew to Bangkok on January 3 (SU6275 from Moscow), and on January 5 he was joined by Zarubin, who arrived early in the morning from Sheremetyevo,» Dossier notes.
The Detectives also followed Navalny to Latvia, where he traveled to meet with local politicians; they also flew to Verona when Yulia Navalny and her children were there.
«Our employees (and most of them are former operatives) are real professionals who know all the pitfalls of surveillance. They thoroughly prepare for any, even the smallest, assignment and therefore any slip-up can be ruled out by definition,» says the Ten agency's website.
In a conversation with Dossier, the detectives denied spying on Navalny and refused to comment on the subject. The journalists sent an official request to the Investigative Committee demanding an inquiry into the detective agency's activities.
According to Dossier's sources, one of the agency's clients is Eduard Chernovoltsev, head of the FSB Scientific and Technical Service. He is in charge of the FSB Criminalistics Institute (NII-2), which develops all kinds of deadly poisons <see also Say My Name. How Novichok is produced for special services in Russia -The Insider>.
Earlier, a joint investigation by The Insider, Bellingcat and CNN with the participation of Der Spiegel revealed the names and ranks of the FSB officers who had poisoned Alexei Navalny with Novichok. A special division of the FSB Institute of Criminalistics played a key role in the assassination attempt.