A letter describing Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a paid agent of British-American investor William Browder is fake, former CIA agent Valerie Plame told the Dozhd television channel on Monday.
The letter was shown during the weekly "Vesti Nedeli" news show on the Rossia 1 channel which showed a clip from the "The Browder Effect" film — due to be aired in full on Wednesday, the RBC news website reported.
"I think that the letter is fake," said Plame, adding that she had never heard of Alexei Navalny or William Browder.
The film claimed that Navalny, under the pseudonym "Freedom," cooperated with Browder in an operation called "Quake," allegedly designed by the CIA in 1986 to undermine the Russian constitutional order.
The film also shows a letter allegedly signed by Valerie Plame in September 2009. In an interview to Dozhd, Plame said that she left the CIA before 2009.
Navalny said that he plans to sue Rossia 1 and its anchor Dmitry Kiselyov for slander, RBC reported. "It is his right," Kiselyov said in response, adding that the film will be shown regardless of the oppositioner's claims.
