Russia has said it does not intend to investigate the alleged poisoning of opposition Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma in a German hospital, saying there was no evidence of crime.
The prosecutor’s office said it saw no basis for opening a preliminary investigation. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was little reason to act because a toxic substance had not been detected.
“Nothing has changed here in this case. “We still have, unfortunately, no idea what caused the condition in which the patient is now,” said Peskov, refusing to identify Navalny by name.
The Kremlin’s unwillingness to open a meaningful investigation into Navalny’s apparent poisoning is hardly a surprise. On Tuesday, Peskov pointed out allegations that Putin could be behind Navalny’s sudden illness as “low-sounding”, “idle talk”, and not “serious”.
Navalny crashed last week on a flight to Moscow after drinking a cup of tea at Tomsk airport. He was flown to Germany on Saturday and remains in a medically induced coma at Berlin’s Charité hospital.
German doctors confirmed Monday that Navalny was contaminated with a cholinesterase inhibitor – a group that includes nerve agents and pesticides, as well as certain medications. They did not identify the specific poison. Further tests are performed.
Navalny is likely to survive, but the long-term effects are not known, the hospital said. He is being treated with atropine, the same antidote used after the 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury on Sergei and Yulia Skripal.
According to La StampaItalian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday raised Navalny’s poisoning during a phone call with Putin. The Russian president preferred to call Navalny by name, but said afterward that “there were no traces of the offending substance in the body of the affected person”. He asked Italy to share relevant “evidence”.
Meanwhile, the press secretary of Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, complained on Thursday that Moscow state television had given its viewers disinformation about what had caused Navalny’s collapse. The Russian channel one reported on its website that Navalny became ill after consuming an energy drink.
‘It’s a lie. Alexey did not drink any energy drink. And I did not talk about it, ‘tweeted Yarmysh, who was with Navalny when he became ill.
This is a lot. Alexey is not an energy phil and she, she says, is not a go-to https://t.co/5BehUp0LIm
– Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) August 27, 2020
The story originally appeared on the news site RIA FAN, attributed to an unidentified “source”. The site is part of the extensive media empire of Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Putin, who has been accused in the US of running the infamous “troll factory” of St. Petersburg.
On Wednesday, Prigozhin said he intended to “destroy” Navalny if the opposition activist recovers. The oligarch intends to impose a $ 1.2 million court fine against Navalny last October for a video he made about Prigozhin’s hospitality business.
