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'No Doubt' That Navalny Poisoning Was Russian Operation, Former CIA Russia Chief Says

"This is something that the Russian intelligence services have been doing literally for decades, if not longer," says Steven Hall, former CIA chief of Russia operations.
"This is the way Vladimir Putin does things. And he does it both inside of Russia and outside of Russia," says Steven Hall, former CIA chief of Russia operations, discussing a history of poisonings and assassinations of critics of the Russian regime.

"There's no doubt whatsoever" that an operation to poison Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was approved at the highest levels of Russia's government and intelligence services, according to Steven Hall, the former CIA chief of Russia operations.

"There really is no other way to explain this," Hall said in an interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. "And this is something that the Russian intelligence services have been doing literally for decades, if not longer."

A German military lab in Navalny's system as a variant of Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Wednesday. She said the outspoken

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