Russia's top diplomat on Thursday accused the West of poisoning Kremlin's top critic Alexei Navalny without providing any evidence, and vehemently denied any government interference.
Navalny, a staunch opponent of Russian
President Vladimir Putin, was flown’ to Germany on August 20, two days after
falling ill on a domestic flight to Russia. German chemical weapons experts
have vowed that the 44-year-old was poisoned’ with a Soviet-era nerve agent,
prompting Berlin to call for an investigation.
The German hospital treating him said on
Monday that Neville's condition had improved, allowing doctors to take him out
of a coma.
Russian officials have urged Germany to
share the evidence, leading them to conclude that "no doubt" that
Navalny was poisoned’ with a military neuropathy agent of the Novichok group.
British officials say it was used’ on a former Russian spy. Sergey Scripps and
his daughter, in Salisbury, England, in 2018. Russian doctors say they have
found no signs of poisoning in the nasal passages.
Speaking at a news conference on Thursday,
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Germany,
the United States and other Western allies of urging Russia to investigate the
poisoning of Navalny, expecting Russia to do anything about it. Will accept
such an accusation.
"We are accustomed to baseless
allegations," Lavrov said. When the official representative of the German
government says that the independent judiciary has been instructed’ by the
office of the Russian Prosecutor General and therefore the German government
cannot do anything about it. We demand that we investigate; this is similar to
the precedent set by our Western colleagues after the Salisbury poisoning.
He added, "If such logic prevails, it
will only mean that they have above all above the law.
The German Defense Ministry said the data
on Navalny was provided’ to the Hague-based organization for the prohibition of
chemical weapons.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said
Thursday that Russia was still unaware of whether Germany had passed any information
to the OPCW. She stressed that she would like to get information in advance to
help investigate the matter.
"We don't know what they gave to
OPCW," he told reporters during the conference. "We naturally prefer
that they hand over these analyzes directly to us."
Peskov noted that Russian authorities had
made a preliminary investigation into what had happened to Navalny,
but stressed that they needed proof that he was poisoned’ for a full criminal
investigation.
"We are confused as to what
difficulties could have prevented them from sharing their findings with
us," he said.
Earlier this week, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel's office indicated it might agree to reconsider the fate of the
Nord stream 2 pipeline that would bring Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic
Sea. .
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told
Conservative radio host Ben Shapiro that when people around the world "see
an attempt to poison an outrage, and they think it's very likely that it
actually happened to senior Russian officials." Come on, I don't think
that's good for the Russian people.
"I think the world has matured and it
is understood that ordinary countries do not work that way, and that would be
expensive for the Russians," Pompeo said.
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