The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow once again requested evidence of the poisoning of Navalny with the chemical warfare agent Novichok. On the first «anniversary of the Navalny case» this Friday, the ministry claims that Germany and its allies prepared a provocation to bring Russia into disrepute in the eyes of the world community.
45-year-old Navalny is the fiercest opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He fell into a coma on August 20, 2020 on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made a stopover in Omsk because of the emergency. There Navalny was taken to the hospital, later flown to Germany, where he was treated in the Berlin Charité and regained consciousness and strength.
Laboratories of the German Armed Forces as well as in France, Sweden and at the Organization for a Ban on Chemical Weapons (OPCW) proved the illegal warfare agent Novichok. Germany and the EU called on Russia to clarify the case and also imposed sanctions as leverage.
While Russia denies the allegations to this day, Navalny and his team have submitted numerous investigations and documents that are supposed to prove the attack. The Kremlin opponents accuse a killer squad of the domestic secret service FSB under the orders of Putin of having prepared the attack – which the Kremlin chief rejects. So far, the West has not presented any evidence for its “inexcusable accusations”, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow said.
Nawalny’s employees reacted horrified to the news. The Russian authorities have spread different versions over and over again – including claims that Navalny was poisoned by Western intelligence services or tried to kill himself. Apparently Moscow is preparing for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s (CDU) visit to Putin in the Kremlin this Friday. “But bad. I already refuted all the nonsense and the lies in detail in a video months ago, »said Navalny’s colleague Maria Pewtschich. The film had more than eight million views on Thursday morning.