Authorities were closely watching Russian liberal opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the days leading up to Thursday when he was poisoned, according to sources in his area.
The Russian boulevard newspaper Moskovski Komsolets reports that based on police sources.
Before Navalny suddenly became very ill on Thursday morning on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, he is said to have been followed by plainclothes agents from the FSB security service. He was also monitored with security cameras.
Intelligence sources are said to have shared extensively with Moskovsky Komsolets all the details of the Kremlin critic’s journey for the alleged poisoning.
The newspaper reports, among other things, how many rooms Navalny’s employees had booked in a local hotel and that Navalny decided not to sleep in the place reserved in his name.
A friend of Navalny’s rented an apartment for him, but it was discovered by the police when one of Navalny’s supporters ordered sushi for that address.
Navalny’s spokesman Kira Yarmish responded to the story via Twitter. “The scale of the surveillance doesn’t surprise me at all,” she wrote. “What does surprise me is that intelligence sources are not afraid to tell this.”