Close Navalny ally claims to have found spy inside opposition organization
Russian activist Lubov Sobol, a key ally of the jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny, has claimed to have discovered a mole within her team, accusing a former campaign aide of working for the government.
In a YouTube video titled “We Caught A Spy,” Sobol accused Olga Klyuchnikova, the former head of her multiple election campaigns, of collaborating with the Russian secret services.
“I want to apologize to you and tell you the unpleasant news,” Sobol told her viewers. “One of the faces of the Navalny Live channel, Olga Klyuchnikova, is someone who, according to my information, is leaking information to the Russian secret services.”
Sobol worked for Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation [FBK], designated by the Russian Ministry of Justice as an extremist organization, until last year, when it was dissolved. She fled Russia in August after a series of legal struggles, which she has slammed as being politically motivated.
According to Sobol, Klyuchnikova was passing information about her election campaigns to the authorities, and suggested there may soon be a data leak. In response, Klyuchnikova denied the allegation.
“I don’t understand what happened. I never worked for the security forces. I never leaked anything to them,” Klyuchnikova tweeted, noting that she had no intention of releasing information. “I’m sorry that Lyuba [Sobol] and the FBK made such a mistake. I hope the truth will win.”
When questioned by Latvia-based outlet The Insider, Klyuchnikova suggested that Moscow had created the problem to cause harm to the Navalny cause. The Insider is registered by the Russian Ministry of Justice as a foreign agent.
“I did nothing of the kind. I have not cooperated with the intelligence services, and I do not,” she said. “Over the last year, I have been hacked twice, my email and Instagram have been broken, I have no social networks (except Twitter), I think it was a planned attack by the Russian secret services to incapacitate me and hurt the team.”
