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On Monday, the German government announced that two more laboratories had independently determined that Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the novitiate, writes Reuters.
The special laboratories of Sweden and France thus confirm the initial German analysis, which established that Navalny was poisoned with the same poison used against the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain two years ago.
In Sweden, the Swedish Defense Investigation Agency carried out the analysis. The assignment came from a laboratory in Germany on September 4. According to the head of the department, Åsa Scott, there is no doubt that this is novitjok.
– It is unequivocally the same substance that was found in Germany. Once we have done the analysis and obtained a result, we are very confident. We are good at analysis. This is our area of expertise.
Since the Swedish Defense Research Agency’s laboratory carries out work for the United Nations Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, OPCW, it is not uncommon to work with international cases. In 2013, they analyzed, among other things, sarin samples from the Syrian war.
At the same time, novitjok is a special topic to analyze, says Åsa Scott.
– Only now this year has appeared the list of substances that we can analyze, he says.
Has it made the analysis of the sample difficult?
– It’s always a challenge. Especially in this case when you know what is at stake. It’s an important task where you want to deliver as accurate and unequivocal a result as possible, says Åsa Scott.
Following the announcement, Germany once again asks Russia to cooperate in the poisoning investigation.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has previously made clear that Navalny’s poisoning is an assassination attempt. At the same time, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has threatened Russia with sanctions if it does not cooperate in the investigation.
On August 20, Navalny fell ill while flying between Tomsk in Siberia and Moscow. The Russian opposition politician was subsequently airlifted to the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. After slipping into a coma, he woke up on September 7.
