Another Putin critic poisoned

Confirmation that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned has added his name to a sickening rollcall of President Vladimir Putin’s adversaries who have ended up dead or fighting for their lives. Toxicology tests on Mr Navalny, 44, who was flown from Omsk in Siberia last Saturday to Berlin’s Charite Hospital, concluded he was poisoned by cholinesterase inhibitors, found in pesticides, and by agents that damage the central nervous system. Adding to speculation of deep-state Kremlin dirty tricks, doctors disclosed that Russia’s most effective opposition leader since Mr Putin came to power was being treated with atropine. That is the same antidote used after the brazen attempt in the English town of Salisbury in 2018 to kill former Russian military intelligence defector Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia using novichok, a chemical weapon from the Soviet era.

Underlining the link with the Salisbury attack, which was the first use of a chemical weapon in Europe since World War II, Navalny ally Leonid Volkov said: “The world’s most famous cholinesterase inhibitor is called novichok.” That link — and the litany of similar attempts to wipe out Putin critics — shows the need for a strong Western response to the poisoning of Mr Navalny, whose internet videos documenting the corruption of Russia’s rulers have been viewed by millions.

Mr Navalny’s poisoning — and the way fearful Russian doctors were ordered to cover up evidence of it — show how iniquitous the Putin regimen is in oppressing its opponents. Those targeted previously include Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition activist who survived two poisonings; Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader before Mr Navalny, who was gunned down near the Kremlin in 2015; and Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian secret agent and defector poisoned by polonium-210 in London in 2006. One of the chief suspects in Litvinenko’s assassination was given a seat in the Russian parliament a year later and in 2015 was awarded a special medal by Mr Putin.

To the shame of Western democracies, Mr Putin so far has suffered little blowback for the unscrupulous attacks on his opponents. Only a few dozen Russian diplomats have been expelled from Western capitals. It will be a travesty if the response to the outrageous attempt to kill Mr Navalny is another meaningless shrug of the shoulders. From the start of his presidency, Donald Trump has been bewilderingly indulgent towards Mr Putin. When asked in 2017 about the Russian despot’s record as a “killer”, he responded: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”

In June, Mr Trump proffered a major new sign of friendship to the former KGB colonel, inviting him to the summit of G7 leaders at Camp David. As a foil against any criticism, he framed the invitation in the context of similar invitations to Scott Morrison, India’s Narendra Modi and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in, all leaders of vibrant democracies. The G7 summit has been delayed. Whenever it is held, Mr Trump’s invitation to Mr Putin should not be renewed. Following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Mr Putin was expelled from what was then the G8. He has been clawing to get back ever since. It would be unthinkable to allow him to re-enter an exclusive group of democratic nations that observes the rule of law.