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Three weeks after the poisoning of the Kremlin critic Navalny, pressure on the Russian government remains high. Now he wants to work with international researchers, if Germany shares his findings.
The Russian government has accepted international cooperation in the case of the poisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Russia will contact the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) after Germany released the results of its tests on the “Berlin patient,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskow of the Interfax agency.
From the German side, there has so far been no reaction, despite requests from Russia’s Attorney General’s Office to provide the results of the investigation, Peskow said. Russia has so far seen no reason to do anything about it. The Russian representative to the OPCW, Alexander Schulgin, announced that no documents had yet been delivered from Berlin.
According to the Federal Ministry of Defense, data on Navalny have been transmitted to the OPCW in The Hague. Peskov said that Russia is not yet aware of this. “Of course we would prefer that they had delivered these analyzes directly to us.”
Peskow wants to see evidence
The Russian Prosecutor’s Office submitted a request for legal assistance in Germany. The German authorities had already emphasized last week that the Berlin judicial administration was examining this. Federal Chancellor Heiko Maas had in the ARD announced that the German side would agree. However, the federal government does not see any prerequisites for delivering the evidence to Russia.
According to Peskov, the Russian authorities are starting a preliminary review of what happened to Navalny. He stressed that they needed proof of poisoning in order to open a full criminal investigation. “We are puzzled as to what kind of difficulties might have prevented them from sharing their findings with us,” Peskow said.
Navalny, 44, one of the fiercest opponents of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, passed out on August 20 during a domestic flight in Russia. At the urging of his family, after initial treatment in Siberia, he was transferred to the Charité in Berlin. After investigations in a special Bundeswehr laboratory, the federal government considers it proven that he was poisoned with a military nerve agent from the Novitschok group. Navalny supporters suspect that Moscow is behind the act.
Moscow continues to reject the accusations
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also believes senior Russian government officials are likely involved in the poisoning. Pompeo spoke on a radio broadcast Wednesday of a “considerable probability” that this is the case.
Peskov and Russia’s chief diplomat Sergei Lavrov emphatically rejected these statements as unacceptable. Russia will no longer believe a word from the West about the situation around Navalny, Lavrov told reporters in Moscow. Peskow emphasized again that Navalny was handed over to the Germans in August without any signs of poisoning. Russian doctors had certified that Navalny, unconscious for a long time, suffered from a metabolic disorder and low blood sugar.
Meanwhile, the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA) tightened precautions for Navalny’s safety according to a media report. Both the number of agents deployed and the density of controls had increased, the “Spiegel” reported, referring to a joint investigation with the Bellingcat research platform. “Now he should also be under surveillance in the hospital.”
