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Navalny, a critic of the Kremlin, no longer needs ventilation and may temporarily leave his sickbed. La Charité announced that her condition continued to improve. Foreign laboratories confirmed the findings of the Navalny poisoning.
About three weeks after his admission to the Berlin Charité, the poisoned Russian opposition politician Alexej Navalny is still on the mend. The 44-year-old man has now been “completely weaned off mechanical ventilation,” the clinic said. He is “increasingly mobilized” and may “temporarily leave the sickbed.”
Foreign laboratories confirm Novichok poisoning
Navalny has been treated at the Charité since Aug. 22, after he collapsed two days earlier during a flight in Russia. According to the federal government, Navalny was “undoubtedly” poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the so-called Novichok group. The poison was developed by Soviet scientists in the 1970s.
Since then, laboratories in France and Sweden have confirmed the German findings. The federal government announced in Berlin. This means that “three laboratories have now independently provided evidence of a nerve agent from the Novitschok group as the cause of Mr. Navalny’s poisoning,” said government spokesman Steffen Seibert.
Macron also asks for a clarification
According to Seibert, Germany supplied Navalny samples to special laboratories in France and Sweden. The results “are now available and confirm the German evidence,” Seibert said. The German government is “in close contact with its European partners to take further steps.”
French President Emmanuel Macron also spoke of an “assassination attempt” on Navalny. Macron urged Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call to “complete the explanation,” as announced by the presidential office in Paris. Germany has its “full solidarity” in this case, stressed the president. Russia, for its part, must now “initiate a credible and transparent investigation.”
The Russian government had previously repeatedly expressed doubts about findings made by a Bundeswehr laboratory. The German government reiterated its demand that Russia explain the facts. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is conducting another investigation. Therefore, their experts have also taken samples from Navalny, which must now be examined by reference laboratories.
