Issue and Opponent: In August 2020, the Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was nearly fatally poisoned on a flight to Moscow with the lethal nerve agent Novichok reportedly planted in his underwear by the Russian secret service agency FSB. Navalny has long been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin, exposing corruption in high places and campaigning against the ruling United Russia party. Navalny fell suddenly ill on a flight home to Moscow and the pilot diverted to Omsk, where he received lifesaving emergency treatment from paramedics.
Dilemma Action: Following the release of a video in which Mr. Navalny conducts a call where he fools one of the F.S.B. operatives, later identified as Konstantin Kudryavtsev, into confessing to key details of the attempted assassination, it went viral. Navalny has taken a comic approach to his near-death experience and has spurred memes and TikToks mocking the assassination attempt. Subsequently, a friend of Navalny and Russian filmmaker Vitaly Mansky was detained in front of the FSB building after waving a pair of blue boxer shorts in protest.
Outcome: The FSB issued a statement claiming that a video of Navalny’s conversation with Kudryavtsev, posted by the opposition leader on his YouTube channel, was a “fake” facilitated by foreign intelligence. The video was viewed more than 12 million times in less than 24 hours and sparked countless memes on the Russian internet, particularly over the role of Navalny’s underwear in the poisoning.