Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny attends an interview with prominent Russian YouTube blogger Yury Dud, in Berlin, Germany, in this still image taken from a handout video released on October 6, 2020. (REUTERS Photo)
MOSCOW, October 6 (Reuters): Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he believed Russia's intelligence services had poisoned him with a rare nerve agent because authorities saw him as a threat ahead of next year's parliamentary elections.
"They understood that there were big, big problems threatening them ahead of elections for the State Duma," Navalny said in a YouTube interview with a Russian blogger, his first video appearance since being discharged from a Berlin hospital.
The Kremlin has rejected any suggestion that President Vladimir Putin or the Russian authorities were responsible for Navalny's condition.
Navalny said he did not know how a Novichok nerve agent had got into his system, but that he could have touched something.
