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AForeign Minister Heiko Maas commented on the Navalnyj poisoning in no uncertain terms. “We condemn this attack very strongly,” Maas said in Berlin on Wednesday. “Russia itself should have a great interest in good relations with its neighbors in Europe. Now is the time to make a decisive contribution. “
The German government had previously announced that it no longer had doubts that Russian opposition politician Alexej Navalnyj had been poisoned with a Novichok group neurotoxin and has urged the Russian government to explain the incident. It is obviously also considering a coordinated European response to the incident. The government announced on Wednesday that at the behest of the Berlin Charité, where Navalnyj has been treated since August 22, a special Bundeswehr laboratory had performed a toxicological test on samples from the sick person: Novitschok Group provided “.
After the results were announced, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz spoke with the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Justice, Defense and the head of the Federal Chancellery and “agreed on additional steps” said government spokesman Steffen Seibert.
In its communication, the German government further states that it is “an alarming fact that Alexei Navalnyj was the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve agent in Russia.” The process must be condemned “in the strongest terms.”
In addition to urging Moscow to explain what happened, the German government asked the Russian ambassador to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin to transmit the results of the investigation and the German position. It was also said that Germany’s partners in the EU and NATO would be informed of the results of the investigation through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; it would then “discuss an appropriate joint reaction with the partners in light of the Russian agreement.” The federal government also wants to contact the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and inform them of the facts.
Alexei Navalnyj fell suddenly into a coma on a Russian domestic flight on August 20 and was initially treated at a hospital in Omsk, Siberia. At the urging of his family, he was taken to the Charité in Berlin. Doctors there have already assumed poisoning in an initial finding without being able to determine exactly the toxin.
