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Comment by pfundstein | Hacker News Reader

It's not that they failed to guess the dose, it's likely that the rapid treatment saved his life:

> "a new and improved version of the Novichok agent, which has not been encountered in the world before", was used in Navalny's poisoning. This new type of Novichok is more toxic and dangerous than its previously known variants, but acts more slowly. It had been planned that Navalny would die on board the plane, but he had survived "thanks to a sequence of successful coincidences: the quick reaction of the pilot who made an emergency landing, and the doctors in Omsk, who immediately injected Navalny with atropine". [1]

[1] (German) https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/alexej-nawalny-so...

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How is then this most toxic gas safer than other basic toxic ones you can brew even at home?! It's been hours from the time of his poisoning at the hotel to when he got to Germany and he was safe and sound like nothing's happened! Again, tens of thousands get into ICU and hundreds die from a simple acetaminophen overdose each year in the US alone [0]! Why would Putin use something, which such a poor track record of killing his enemies? Why can't they just use a sniper and get this over with?! Why use something, which even the brain-dead know will be linked to Russia?

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15239078/

This is a nerve agent and is not ingested or inhaled, it is absorbed through the skin and is very deadly. There are sole antidotes but they don’t always work. It is used because beside western advanced hospitals it cannot be detected even at an autopsy. Navalny didn’t die because FSB used a small dose not to arise suspicion and make it look like he died of natural causes. Not sure what you’re barking at really, this is a very serious affair. The guesome death of Kashohgi was effective but left a huge stain on the Saudi prince that will forever stick, the poisoning of Navalny was supposed to subtle, his death may spark a riot

How can you compare Navalny to Khashoggi, who was cut in pieces and dissolved into the sewer?! The Turkish TV recently released the investigation footage - unimaginable brutality, tons of evidence, and NOTHING! Navalny is no threat to Putin. He wants to be perceived as one, but he is not. I am not an assassination expert, but I'm sure there plenty of ex-KGB people who can get rid of Navalny if Putin asks them. Car crashes, incidents, you name it - if he wanted him dead, he'd be dead long ago.

Thank you for the info about Novichok. It was airborne during Skripal's case, but now I see it was powder released into the air and not gas.

Did you miss the video where Navalny got an FSB officer to confess his involvement in the attempted murder on Navalny?

Yeah, and I don't buy it. It has two points - Navalny is important and the West needs to retaliate against Russia further and that Russian services are ineffective and outdated, i.e. undermine its credibility where agents could be called and reveal secrets over the phone without any authentication and authorization protocols.

How about Putin's palace? #FakeNews? Someone who's definitely not Putin spent $1.4 billion on this building despite all the evidence pointing at Putin? You'll need to employ some serious doublethink to continue on this train of thought.

Because this is straight from James Bond movies - when villains fail to kill him as they always give him a chance to escape.

They could easily kill Navalny with gun, bomb, polonium... But no, let's poison him with something that's very lethal but in such way that he lives.

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