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German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that on the issue of imposing sanctions against Russia for the possible poisoning of the leader of the Russian opposition Alexei Navalny, Berlin will act in the same way as in the case of the assassination of the commander of Chechen countryside Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said sanctions in the Khangoshvili case could be introduced after the trial is over.
Germany will impose diplomatic sanctions on Russia if it concludes that Russian government agencies were behind the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. According to Reuters, this was announced on August 28 by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
He noted that Berlin will act in the same way as in the case of the murder of the Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.
Khangoshvili is a native of Georgia, of Chechen ethnicity. During the Second Chechen War, he commanded one of the units that fought against Russia and later collaborated with the Georgian special services. According to Deutsche Welle, Khangoshvili had a Georgian passport in the name of Tornike Kavtarashvili. In 2015, Khangoshvili was assassinated in Tbilisi. After that, he went to Ukraine and then to Germany.
Khangoshvili was killed on August 23, 2019 in Berlin: the killer approached the victim on a bicycle and fired several shots. The killer was soon arrested. On December 6, Bellingcat published an investigation claiming that the detainee was named Vadim Krasikov and that he entered Germany using documents issued in the name of Vadim Sokolov. Investigators believe he is associated with the Russian FSB.
On June 18, 2020, the German prosecution filed formal charges against the Russian for murder and illegal possession of a weapon. According to German law enforcement officers, he committed the murder at the request of “departments that are subordinate to the government of the Russian Federation.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel noted that Berlin will consider imposing sanctions against Russia after the trial is over.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was urgently hospitalized in Omsk on suspicion of poisoning on 20 August (he felt ill on a plane flying from Tomsk to Moscow). The opposition team believes that a toxic substance was added to their tea. Until August 22, Navalny was in the toxic resuscitation department of the in1 emergency hospital in Omsk, unconscious, he was connected to a ventilator.
Navalny’s main work diagnosis at the Russian hospital was called metabolic disorder.
On August 22, Navalny was airlifted to the Berlin clinic “Charite”. On August 24, German doctors announced that Navalny had been poisoned. Clinical data indicate intoxication with a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors. The exact substance is still unknown. The opponent’s condition remains serious, the politician is in a drug-induced coma, but nothing threatens his life, said the Charité clinic.
On August 28, the German edition of Der Spiegel, citing sources, reported that the Charite clinic had enlisted the help of poison experts and chemical warfare agents from the Bundeswehr laboratory.
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