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Russia defies sanctions threat over Navalny poisoning
MOSCOW, Sept 5, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Russia defied threats of new sanctions
over the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, as US President Donald Trump said on
Friday he had not yet seen proof that the Kremlin critic was a victim of
Moscow’s Novichok programme.
A new crisis in ties between Russia and the West broke out after Germany
said this week there was “unequivocal evidence” that President Vladimir
Putin’s top foe had been poisoned using the Soviet-era nerve agent.
Western leaders and many Russians have expressed horror at what Navalny’s
allies say is the first known use of chemical weapons against a high-profile
opposition leader on Russian soil.
The 44-year-old lawyer fell ill on a Siberian flight last month and was
evacuated to Germany for treatment. He has been in an artificially induced
coma for the past two weeks.
The Kremlin again denied responsibility for the attack on Friday.
“A whole number of theories including poisoning were considered from the
very first days,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “According
to our doctors, this theory has not been proved.”
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Germany’s justice ministry had so far
failed to share any findings with Moscow’s prosecutors, adding that Russian
authorities had “nothing to hide”.
Trump said Friday he had yet to see proof from Berlin that Navalny had been
poisoned.
“I don’t know exactly what happened. I think it’s tragic, it’s terrible, it
shouldn’t happen,” the president told a press conference.
– ‘Stress and dieting’ –
Over the past few days, pro-Kremlin figures have wheeled out a number of
eyebrow-raising theories, including that Navalny might have been poisoned by
Germans in Berlin or even have poisoned himself.
On Friday, a toxicologist claimed the opposition politician’s health could
have deteriorated due to dieting, stress or fatigue, insisting no poison had
been found in his samples in the Siberian city of Omsk.
“Any external factors could have triggered a sudden deterioration. Even a
simple lack of breakfast,” said the chief toxicologist for the Omsk region,
Alexander Sabayev.
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On Thursday, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko also muddied the
waters, claiming his security forces had intercepted German calls showing
Navalny’s poisoning had been faked.
Russia has in the past denied responsibility for a 2018 Novichok attack on
former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England, as well as a
litany of similar incidents.
– NATO demands transparency –
In Brussels, NATO called for an international probe into Navalny’s
poisoning and demanded Moscow reveal details of its Novichok nerve agent
programme to the OPCW global chemical weapons watchdog.
After an emergency meeting of NATO’s ruling council, alliance chief Jens
Stoltenberg said all members were united in condemning the “horrific” attack
on Navalny.
Germany briefed the other 29 nations on the case and Stoltenberg said there
was “proof beyond doubt” Novichok was used.
“The Russian government must fully cooperate with the Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on an impartial international investigation,”
Stoltenberg said.
The Novichok attack on Skripal in 2018 led to seven Kremlin diplomats being
expelled from their NATO mission.
While Stoltenberg did not rule out a similar reprisal this time, he
stressed that the Navalny poisoning was quite different from the Skripal
attack, which happened on the soil of a NATO member.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell earlier called on Moscow
to cooperate with an international probe into the poisoning and said the 27-
nation bloc would not rule out sanctions.
In Moscow, a court threw out a complaint by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption
Foundation over investigators’ perceived inaction, the group said.
Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny’s anti-corruption group, said Thursday the
opposition politician’s poisoning opened a “new chapter” in a Kremlin
crackdown on dissent.
“Now the Russian state will be inventing the most absurd and crazy versions
of what has happened,” he told AFP.
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