At about 9 a.m. on August 13, a 33-year-old Russian woman named Maria Pevchikh checked in for a flight from Moscow to the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. She was not alone.

Trailing her to Domodedovo airport that morning was a member of an elite unit of the Russian Security Service, the FSB. Oleg Tayakin, a slim, balding man with blue-green eyes, remained at the airport until Pevchikh left.

Pevchikh was travelling in advance of a visit to Siberia by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose anti-corruption campaign she leads.

The Navalny team is constantly watched by the FSB in Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union's secret police force, the KGB. But Tayakin is no ordinary agent. He belongs to a small team specializing in toxins and nerve agents. That very morning, several of its agents were on their way to Novosibirsk, two hours ahead of Pevchikh. They knew that Navalny, a thorn in President Vladimir Putin's side for nearly a decade, would arrive in Novosibirsk the next day.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/cnn-bellingcat-investigation-identifies-russians-who-trailed-navalny-before-he-was-poisoned-1.5230035