When Vladimir Putin says his GRU did not poison Alexei Navalny with the nerve agent Novichok, we should look to recent history to question the statement.
In 2018, two GRU "tourists" were identified by British police as the two who poisoned Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, in the UK. The Russians deny they did that and had these two geniuses on Russian television to tell the world what sounded incredible at the time. They were there on vacation to look at the architecture of the town. The British did not believe them and expelled 23 diplomats. You would think that might have gotten Russia's attention but apparently not.
Yesterday, the Russians denied Navalny even had any contamination present when he was in the hospital in Siberia. So, their inference must be that the nerve agent must have been introduced after he left there. Unbelievable. Novichok is a Russian invention six times more powerful than VX nerve gas. They use an agent that is known to be Russian so they can deny doing it, but make clear that it was them. It serves as a warning to others who oppose Putin for any reason.
The longer the Russians maintain they did not do the poisoning, the longer the people who read about what the Russians are saying view their comments as incredible.
