Alexei Navalny: Germany urges EU to act on Novichok poisoning

A senior ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the EU risks becoming irrelevant if it does not act against Russia over the poisoning of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.

Norbert Röttgen said a major gas deal with Russia must now be reconsidered.

The Russian government has been widely condemned after Germany confirmed on Wednesday that Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.

He is seriously ill in intensive care at the Charité hospital in Berlin.

Navalny was flown to the German capital after collapsing in pain on a flight over Siberia on August 20. His supporters believe they put poison in his tea at Tomsk airport.

Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, demanded a tough response from the EU in the Navalny case. Novichok is an extremely toxic military grade weapon that experts say must have come from a state facility.

“Now again, we are brutally faced with the reality of the Putin regime, which treats people with contempt,” Röttgen told German public broadcaster ARD.

He noted that President Vladimir Putin had projected Russia’s power into Syria, Libya and Belarus, saying: “The question is, will Europeans always end up doing nothing? If so, then we will become irrelevant, we will not be. taken seriously “.

Earlier, Merkel said that Navalny was the victim of an assassination attempt and that the world would look to Russia for answers.

He said there would be an “appropriate joint response” by the EU and NATO, and described the poisoning of Mr. Navalny as “an attack on the fundamental values ​​and basic rights to which we are committed.”

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that poisoning someone with a nerve agent “is considered a use of chemical weapons.” She called the alleged attack “a matter of grave concern” and vowed to help any state that requests her help.

The Kremlin has not accepted the diagnosis in Germany, saying it has seen no German data on Navalny’s condition.

“There is no reason to accuse the Russian state,” President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that Germany and other EU nations should not “rush with their assessments.”

Röttgen warned that Germany would risk becoming dependent on Russia by completing Nord Stream 2, a controversial 1,225-kilometer (760-mile) pipeline owned by Russia’s Gazprom.

He also warned that doing so would encourage Putin to ignore Western protests over the Navalny case and other attacks on his political opponents. Mr Röttgen is a candidate to succeed Mrs Merkel as Chancellor next year.

On Tuesday, Ms Merkel reiterated her wish for Nord Stream 2 to be completed.

President Donald Trump has imposed sanctions on any company that helps Gazprom complete the project.

However, his critics wonder why he has not commented on the attacks on Navalny.

“Donald Trump has refused to confront Putin, calling him an ‘excellent person,'” Biden said.

Mr. Navalny entered a medically induced coma after becoming ill. His team says he was poisoned on the orders of President Putin. The Kremlin has rejected the accusation.

A team of German specialists has found “unequivocal evidence” that a Novichok nerve agent was used.

Charité hospital says it expects Navalny’s recovery to take a long time and cannot rule out long-term side effects, but his cholinesterase enzyme agent’s blockade is waning.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin spokesperson asked Germany for a full exchange of information, and Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova complained that Novichok’s allegations were not supported by evidence.

Novichok has been in the news before. It was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018. While they survived, a British woman later died in hospital. The UK accused Russia’s military intelligence of carrying out that attack.

In a coordinated move, 20 countries expelled more than 100 Russian diplomats and spies.

The US National Security Council (NSC) said the suspected poisoning was “completely reprehensible.”

Alexei Navalny is a name that President Putin refuses to speak out loud.

It’s an attempt to downplay its political importance, but the endless prosecutions, police arrests, and gigantic fines that Navalny has faced over the years tell a different story about its impact.

It has certainly upset a lot of people, from those targeted by its anti-corruption investigations to Vladimir Putin himself. So it is possible that someone wanted to solve the “Navalny problem” forever.

The timing is largely irrelevant. Because right now? Well why not. But if whoever did this hoped to contain the consequences, a mysterious collapse, never explained by Russian doctors, the fact that Navalny’s team took him to Germany has ruined that calculation.

The “collapse” is now a deliberate attack and a major international scandal. The Kremlin’s response so far is familiar: deny, obfuscate, demand proof. Putin’s spokesman has even hinted that if Navalny had been poisoned, then it must have happened in Germany because doctors here did not detect anything suspicious.

Expect to hear much more to that effect in the coming days.