The former "Minister of Defense of the DPR" Igor Hirkin (Strelkov), who called himself a "Colonel of the FSB in reserve", after returning to Russia, for many years used passports obtained from the FSB for cover. Through the general series of such passports, journalists found a connection between Hirkin and two of Navalnyʼs "poisoners", as well as "Vympel" special forces officer Vadym Krasykov, who killed the Chechen refugee Khangoshvili in Berlin.
This is the subject of a joint investigation by The Insider and Bellingcat.
They write that a special series of passports was also found in the possession of the former leader of the "LPR" Igor Plotnytskyi. However, in his case, there are connections with hackers of the intelligence agency, not the FSB.
Journalists explain that it was possible to discover these connections thanks to the wives, because both Hirkin and Plotnytskyi flew with false names on the same ticket book with their wives.
And Krasykovʼs wife herself received false documents when they decided to hide her after her husbandʼs arrest in Berlin.
Another passport was issued in the name of "Artem Vinogradov". In March 2015, he was the one who flew on the same reservation with "Mykhail Stepanov" — this is the cover name of one of the members of the poison control unit of the FSB unit Mykhailo Shvets. The latter participated in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny.
- On December 14, 2020, international investigators named the FSB employees who poisoned Navalny and almost killed his wife earlier. A few hours before the results of the investigation were made public, Navalny called one of the FSB employees, Kostyantyn Kudryavtsev, who may have been involved in his poisoning. The politician introduced himself as the assistant secretary of the Security Council and the former director of the FSB, Mykola Patrushev, and talked with him for 45 minutes. Kudryavtsev admitted to conducting a special operation on poisoning.
- On February 2, 2021, the court sent Navalny to prison for 2 years and 8 months in the Yves Rocher case.