MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th September, 2020) Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Russian upper house's foreign affairs committee, on Monday opined that the German government's sequence of steps in response to the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny lacked consistency.
Earlier in the day, the German government said that Navalny's samples and case materials were sent to French and Swedish experts, who confirmed that the man had been poisoned with a Novichok military-grade nerve agent substance.
Kosachev pointed to the fact that Germany had refused to make the case materials available to Russia in the first place on the premises that Navalny was poisoned with a chemical weapon which made it an exclusive remit of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), but then for some reason made them available to France and Sweden.
"Is it only me who questioned the lack of consistency in Germany's position?" the lawmaker said in a Facebook post, adding "Either the OPCW or other countries. This all turned out awkward for you, Germans."
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 Berlin-based Charite clinic for further treatment.
It was not until September 2 that German doctors claimed Navalny's samples contained traces of a Novichok group substance. Leonid Rink, a scientist directly involved in the development of Novichok, told Sputnik that Navalny's symptoms were uncharacteristic of poisoning with this toxin.
Berlin refused to provide Moscow with the case-related materials, sending them to the OPCW instead and citing Russia's membership in the organization.
