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Alexej Navalny’s health has improved: the poisoned Russian opposition activist has woken up from an artificial coma and is reacting again when spoken to. Meanwhile, the federal government is pushing for a full investigation into the poison attack.
The Russian police want to participate in the investigation in Germany. A request to the German authorities is being prepared, the transport police said.
The police unit is in charge of solving crimes on trafficking routes. Until now, Moscow had always refused to investigate the Navalny case because, according to the Kremlin, there was no evidence that the opposition was poisoned on Russian soil. The transport police have now announced that preliminary investigations are ongoing. The aim is to ensure that Russian investigators can ask opposition member Navalny and other witnesses “clarifying questions.” The Russian researchers also want to accompany their German colleagues in their investigations, the message said.
Navalny was poisoned during a campaign tour in Siberia. He collapsed on a domestic flight, was first hospitalized in Russia, and then flown to Berlin for further treatment. The transport department of the Russian Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the preliminary investigations in the Navalny case, now wants to ask the federal government for an interview with Navalny in Berlin.
The federal government has yet to receive a request from Moscow to send its own investigators to Berlin. This is not the case, said government spokesman Steffen Seibert when asked. The federal government has “taken steps to obtain evidence,” Seibert said. However, this process is not yet complete. By the way, confidentiality is required here, you will not provide further information.
According to doctors from the Berlin Charité, Nawalny’s condition is improving significantly. According to the federal government, a Bundeswehr laboratory has shown that Navalny was poisoned by a neurotoxin from the Novitschok group. This type of poison was developed in the former Soviet Union and can only be made in a few laboratories. Since the publication of this finding, tensions between Berlin and Moscow have escalated massively.
The Russian government rejects any blame in the Navalny case and asked the German government, among other things, to provide it with the Bundeswehr laboratory results. According to Moscow, no traces of venom were found on Navalny’s body during the two days of treatment and examination at the hospital in Omsk, Siberia.
German-Russian parliamentary group on the Navalny case
Meanwhile, the presidents of the German-Russian parliamentary group of the Bundestag and the State Duma, AfD member of the Bundestag Robby Schlund and Pavel Zavalny, signed a joint statement on the Navalny case on 10 September. He says they wish Navalny a speedy recovery and hope he makes a full recovery. “We consider it essential and demand an independent examination of his state of health with the participation of German, Russian and neutral criminologists and doctors,” says the statement sent to SPIEGEL.
Both parties considered this extremely important and called for a “strict distinction between issues of political and economic interaction and issues of law enforcement.” This is particularly important on the sensitive issue of German-Russian relations.
“As chairmen of parliamentary groups, we insist on conducting a constructive and impartial investigation that is not a priori linked to cooperation between our countries in civil society, business and culture,” concluded the one-page statement that received the signatures of the both presidents.
The various parliamentary groups in the Bundestag maintain contact with parliamentarians from other countries. AfD politician Schlund was elected chairman of the German-Russian parliamentary group in June 2018, and his deputies include politicians from the Union, the SPD, the FDP, the Greens and the Left. It is made up of about 70 members from both sides and, according to its own information, is the second largest in the Bundestag after the German-American parliamentary group.
