Navalny

-Rolling. -We're rolling on him.

Roher: Okay. We're going, guys?

-Yeah. - Yeah.

Okay, so, Alexei, I want to talk about something

that we sort of touched on this morning.

And you might hate this,

but I really want you to think about it.

If you are killed, if this does happen,

what message do you leave behind

to the Russian people?

Oh, come on, Daniel.

No. No way.

It's like you're making a movie for the case of my death.

Like, again, I'm ready to answer your question,

but please let it be another movie.

Movie number two.

Like, let's make a trailer out of this movie,

and in the case I would be killed,

let's make a boring movie of memory.

Man: Alexei Navalny is stepping back

into another showdown with the Kremlin.

Woman: What to do with Navalny

presents a conundrum for the Kremlin.

Let him go and risk looking weak or lock him up

knowing it could turn him into a political martyr.

Hi.

Man #2: Are you not scared, Alexei?

Woman #2: What do you expect in Moscow?

Woman #3: Unexpectedly,

Vladimir Putin has a genuine challenger.

A handsome 41-year-old lawyer, Alexei Navalny,

who has chosen one of the most dangerous occupations

in the world --

running against the man who controls the Kremlin.

Man #3: More than any other opposition figure in Russia,

Alexei Navalny gets ordinary people active protest.

Alexei: If I want to fight Putin,

if I want to be a leader of a country,

I have to do something practical about it.

Well, uh, I have to kind of organize people.

I was banned from everything.

Television, banned.

Newspapers, blacklisted.

Rallies, forbidden.

I realized, I can do a lot on my own

with the support of my wife, Yulia.

Just small group of people, I can rely on.

Zero money, a lot of work.

Internet and that's it.

Man #4: His youngest fans have turned to TikTok,

which has been crucial in spreading the word.

Woman #4: Navalny's posted hundreds of videos

about his corruption investigations,

and they're wildly popular.

Roher: The Kremlin hates Navalny so much

that they literally refuse to say his name.

Alexei: Our office was raided,

and they just confiscated everything.

Everything.

They splash a toxic liquid to my face

and my first thought was "Jesus.

I will be some kind of monster until the end of my days."

As I became more and more famous guy,

I was totally sure that my life became safer and safer

because I am kind of famous guy.

And it would be problematic for them just to kill me.

Roher: And, boy, were you wrong.

Yes. I was very wrong.

So, we went to Siberia

to make a nice movie about local corruption.

I expected a lot of police.

I expected a lot of people who'd try to prevent

our filming, confiscate our cameras

or just break our cameras or try to beat us.

I expected that sort of things, and I was very surprised like,

"Hmm, why is nobody here?

Why is there kind of --"

I even -- I even have this strange feeling

like a -- like a lack of respect.

"Seriously?

I'm here, and where is my police?"

The whole trip was the smoothest trip

I ever had in regions.

I am a kind of slave of Thursdays,

because on Thursday, I have my online YouTube show.

And then weekend, I can spend with my family

before another trip to another region.

I was going home and then...

I died.

Man #5: Passengers on his flight from Siberia

heard Alexei Navalny cry out in agony.

Other passengers filming just after the plane

makes an emergency landing in Siberia.

Navalny then rushed to the hospital

where he was put on a ventilator.

His spokeswoman saying Navalny was poisoned.

Roher: His wife raced to be by his side.

Interpreter: We've come to the conclusion

that judging by the fact

there were no poisons found in his blood

or no other biological materials,

he has a metabolic disorder,

lowering of blood sugar levels to be specific.

Man #6: We're hearing state news agencies here that are backed

by the Kremlin suggesting that hallucinogenic drugs

may be involved but not poisoning.

Woman #5: This morning, an air ambulance

from a German charity landed.

Interpreter: We have to make sure

his condition is completely stable.

We cannot transfer him in this state

even if his family have consented to it.

Grozev: The moment when I heard the news

that Navalny was poisoned,

my first thought was, "Can this be the Kremlin?

Would they be so dumb to try to kill an opposition figure?

The main opposition figure?"

I was skeptical. I thought, "Hmm.

Maybe it's one of the many oligarchs

on whose feet he has stepped.

Either it's a state-ordered attack

or it is somebody who is trying

to assassinate opposition figures

in order to appease Putin."

Man #7: The closest anyone's come

to tracing a poisoning to Vladimir Putin --

The 2018 attack in Salisbury, England.

Man #8: A defiant Kremlin insisting again

that he had nothing to do with the brazen assassination attempt

of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

Skripal was poisoned

by the military-grade nerve agent Novichok.

The insidiousness of Novichok is that

it actually starts switching off your nerve connectors

in your body one-by-one.

If it's dosed properly, it will just turn you off as a body.

But then within hours, any trace, it will disappear.

So it will always, forever look like it was a natural death.

And this is why it appears to be the preferred form of killing

for people whose death will be under public scrutiny,

such as Navalny.

There was a lot of pressure for us

to start investigating.

Media departments in Russia reached out to us

and said, "Can you help?"

We looked at it, and we thought, "There's no hope in hell

we can investigate a crime that happened in Russia

in the remote corners of Siberia,

sitting here comfortably in Europe."

We didn't even try in the beginning.

Woman #6: Alexei Navalny arrives at this hospital in Berlin

with his wife, Yulia.

A spokesperson tweeted, "The struggle for Alexei's life

and health is just beginning.

Here at the hospital, both inside and out,

he'll be watched."

Dasha: To have your dad,

an opposition leader being poisoned

by we don't know what,

we don't know how, we don't know when,

and just be in a random hospital.

It was just...

It was surreal. It was literally like a book.

Hello.

The doctors assured they can't say anything

about his brain

to which extent he will recover

even if they manage to wake him up.

Many millions of Navalny supporters

were trying to figure out how to help.

We, in Berlin, are a small team.

We had to dive into, like, actually getting things done.

Pevchikh: We all were very skeptical

about investigating Alexei's poisoning.