RUSSIA MADE 2ND ASSASSINATION TRY ON NAVALNY: UK PAPER

Russia agents carried out a second assassination attempt on Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny before he was flown to Berlin, a British newspaper The Times of London has alleged. Moscow has repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks.

A second dose of poison was allegedly given to Navalny before he was flown to Berlin for further treatment, western intelligence sources told the British newspaper on Saturday, the German broadcast service Deutsche Welle (DW) reported.

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The anti-corruption activist fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow after having been poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent. The pilot of the plane made an emergency landing in the city of Omsk allowing an ambulance crew to administer him with atropine, an antidote for poison. It is believed that the antidote may have also prevented the success of the second assassination attempt.

"That atropine saved his life,” former commander of the British army's Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told The Times. "Nerve agents cause multiple organ failure. The lungs give up first and you die. Used quickly, atropine reverses the effects."

The Times alleged that Russian security forces may have influenced the doctor who treated Navalny in Omsk — he would later announce that Putin's greatest critic was probably suffering from a metabolic disorder rather than poisoning. German security sources believe that the would-be assassins used this opportunity to carry out a second attack with the deadly nerve agent.