Suits: Navalny was ‘Putin’s pet parakeet,’ kept alive until he didn’t need to be

Alexei Navalny, a longtime Russian opposition politician and critic of President Vladimir Putin, died in prison at age 47, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said Friday. Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh confirmed the news Saturday. The spokesperson also said it was unclear exactly where Navalny’s body was located.

“On Feb. 16, in correctional colony No. 3, convicted Navalny A.A. felt ill after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” a release from the government agency states, according to ABC News. “The medical staff of the institution immediately arrived, and an ambulance team was called. All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not give positive results. The doctors of the emergency medical service pronounced the convict dead.”

President Joe Biden stated he was both “not surprised and outraged” after the news broke, placing the blame squarely on Putin.

More on Navalny’s death: Western officials and Kremlin critics blame Putin for Navalny’s death in prison

“It’s prophetic because what’s really interesting is that no one had to tell him, and this is before the Novichok poisoning which was supposed to kill them, or was it?” Bryan Suits said on KTTH 770 AM. According to an agency within the National Institutes of Health, Novichoks are “extremely life-threatening nerve agents” and “should be treated as a separate group of chemical warfare compounds due to their hazardous properties.”

In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized after falling ill and losing consciousness while on a domestic flight over Siberia. Navalny’s spokesperson claimed he was poisoned, potentially through a beverage he had before and during the flight. Just two weeks later, German officials confirmed there was “unequivocal proof” Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.

“The Soviet Union signed a chemical weapons ban with the U.S. and the ban listed chemical weapons that we knew of and that they knew of. We destroy ours. They destroy theirs. They just invented a new kind of neurotoxin that wasn’t listed. Since we didn’t know it existed, it didn’t violate the treaty, a very Russian way of doing things.

“Only an enemy of Putin can get novichok’d,” Suits continued. “And that was part of the reason when he was poisoned to go to Germany so that the West would know that it was Putin poisoning him.”

Novichok has been used previously toward those opposing Putin’s regime. Sergei Skripal was given Novichok in a botched assassination attempt in 2018. Skripal was a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies. After spending weeks in the hospital, he and his daughter, who was also poisoned, fully recovered.

In Navalny’s case, Suits noticed he was rather healthy just a day before his death.

“He was on video remote appearing for a court appearance,” Suits said. “He made the state prosecutor laugh. He looked in good spirits. He was healthy.”

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Navalny was a “legitimate opponent” to Putin’s reign, according to Suits, which made the timing of his death all the more peculiar.

“You’ve heard me refer to (Navalny) as Putin’s pet parakeet, keeping him alive until he doesn’t need him alive,” Suits said. “Well, he doesn’t need them alive, because, here, you have a couple of things happening all at once. You have the new Russian anti-satellite system now being publicly discussed in the U.S., The Munich Security Conference is starting and all the European leaders are in Munich. And Putin’s reelection in four days, which I’m going to go out on a limb here on this one, I think he’s going to win.”

“It’s a very sad, very sad day,” Greg Tomlin, producer of The Bryan Suits Show, added. “Shocking, not surprising.”

Listen to the full conversation here or below:

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