Germany's Statements on Navalny Resemble Skripal Case Scenario - Die Linke Lawmaker

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th September, 2020) The way the German government is responding to the poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny appears to follow the scenario of the 2018 poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, Alexander Neu, the Die Linke party spokesman in the Bundestag's Defense Committee, told Sputnik on Thursday.

Navalny is currently undergoing treatment in the Berlin-based Charite hospital after suffering a medical emergency in late August. On Wednesday, the German government said that doctors found traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok group in his system. This prompted many in the West to call for new economic sanctions against Russia.

"So far, it looks like as the German Government's statements are following a script based on the Skripal scheme. I can not recognise the benefit for the Kremlin to plan an attack on Mr Navalny, especially with 'Novichok,' which already 'failed' with the Skripals," Neu said.

The lawmaker believes that the German government must immediately release all information on Navalny and his health, which Moscow has long urged it to do. Both the Russian doctors and prosecutors have repeatedly asked their German counterparts to share information in order to advance the investigation into the case, but neither of them have received a response.

"We do not even know whether he is really being treated at the Charite and not, for example, in a hospital of the German Armed Forces or elsewhere," Neu noted.

Whatever the case, from the moment Navalny left Russia, his life and health became the responsibility of the Western governments, as Russian doctors in Omsk, where he was initially hospitalized, made sure to save his life, the lawmaker said, adding that these "first minutes and hours are crucial."

"So, we see that, as in the case of the Skripals, the reactions of the West are orchestrated from Washington to NATO and the EU in Brussels to individual Western states.

They all follow the Berlin 'version' of this story, without any impartial knowledge or evidence of the alleged poisoning of Navalny," Neu said.

What the Navalny case is becoming now, according to the lawmaker, is a well-known "pattern" where the West "turns itself into investigator, prosecutor, judge and executor vis-a-vis Moscow without any tangible evidence."

"The deeply anti-Russian character of the Navalny action is thus not only evident in the public propaganda against Moscow, but also in the concrete consequences in the economic and geopolitical field," Neu said.

If so, the two key objectives of it are to impose new economic sanctions on Russia and halt the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project evidently, to make Moscow abandon support of Belarus and its president, Alexander Lukashenko, it was argued by the lawmaker.

On August 20, Navalny fell ill during a domestic Russian flight. He was initially treated in the Siberian city of Omsk, where the plane made an emergency landing. Two days later, once the doctors established he was fit for a cross-border aerial transportation, the man was flown to Charite for further treatment.

German doctors initially claimed they found traces of a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors in his system, before flagging the Novichok poisoning.

The Novichok military-grade nerve agent made the talk of the town after former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the UK town of Salisbury in 2018. The UK government accused Moscow of having orchestrated the attack, but provided no evidence. The Russian government has consistently denied the allegation.