Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Monday said Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s phone call with a suspected FSB agent discussing his poisoning was a “provocation” carried out with help from foreign security services.
In a statement to Russian news agencies, the FSB described the call “about the alleged actions against” Navalny as a “planned provocation aimed at discrediting the FSB,” adding that the phone conversation would not have been possible without the “support of foreign special services.”
It added that a video of Navalny conducting the conversation was “fake.”