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RUSSIA-POLITICS-OPPOSITION-KREMLIN
Kremlin wishes critic Navalny a ‘speedy recovery’
MOSCOW, Aug 20, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The Kremlin said Thursday it was aware
that President Vladimir Putin’s chief critic Alexei Navalny was ill and
wished him well, but said there was no evidence yet to back claims he had
been poisoned.
“We are reading this information… We know that he is in serious
condition… Like with any citizen of the Russian Federation we wish him a
speedy recovery,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Aides to Navalny, who was in intensive care in a hospital in the
Siberian city of Omsk, said they believed he had been poisoned because of his
political activities.
Peskov said there was no evidence yet of any poisoning.
“As far as we know there are not yet any test results. All assumptions
are only assumptions,” he said. “Whether it was a poisoning needs to be
confirmed by a laboratory.”
If tests confirmed there was a poisoning, he said, “then there will be
an investigation” just like with any Russian citizen.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1812 hrs