Russian opposition leader Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, says German government
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent, the German government has said.
Last month Navalny was admitted to hospital after suffering severe symptoms of suspected poisoning.
Tests of Navalny’s blood samples conducted at a German military laboratory produced “unequivocal evidence” that the Russian opposition critic was poisoned with Novichok, according to a government spokesperson.
Novichok is a deadly group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military in the 1970s and 1980s. It was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbruy in 2018.
Navalny was taken ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on 20 August and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk.
He was eventually flown to Germany and treated in Berlin, where doctors said there were indications he had been poisoned. Russian doctors had denied this.
Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said the German government would inform the EU and Nato about the results and will consult with them “on an appropriate joint response” after Russia responds to the results.
The German government said it condemned the attack and called for Russia to provide an explanation.
“It is a shocking event that Alexei Navalny has become the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve agent in Russia,” Seibert said. “The federal government condemns this attack in the strongest terms.”
A spokesman for the Kremlin says it had not been informed by Germany that it believed Navalny had been poisoned with the nerve agent.
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