MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th October, 2020) The goal of the campaign around Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny is to create a far-fetched pretext for another set of sanctions against Russia, Alexander Shulgin, Russia's Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said at the 95th session of the organization's Executive Council.
The OPCW said on Tuesday that a substance similar to nerve agent Novichok, but not included on the lists of banned chemicals, had been found in Navalny's organism. The German government said the OPCW's statement in the Navalny case confirmed his poisoning with a Novichok group substance.
"Until we are given documents, materials, samples, material evidence, which - as those who bring charges against us say - prove the presence in Navalny's tests of an alleged chemical warfare agent, until they sit down with us at the negotiating table for interested dialogue at the level of experts, we will consider all that happens around this incident an unbridled propaganda campaign of lies, or, more simply, a low-grade provocation," Shulgin said.
"Its purpose is obvious - to try, in the interests of geopolitics, to denigrate Russia with a series of unsubstantiated accusations and thereby create a far-fetched reason for introducing another 'tranche' of sanctions against our country," he said.
Navalny was hospitalized in the city of Omsk on August 20 after he fell ill on board a plane. Based on the results of tests, local doctors called the main diagnosis a metabolic disorder, which caused a sharp change in blood sugar. It is not yet clear what caused it, but according to Omsk doctors, no poisons were found in Navalny's blood and urine.
Later he was transported by plane to Germany. After that, the German government announced, citing military medics, that Navalny had allegedly been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group of toxic warfare agents. Later, the German cabinet said the conclusions of German experts had been confirmed by laboratories in Sweden and France, in parallel, at Berlin's request, the OPCW is conducting its own research.
In this regard, the Kremlin stated that Berlin had not informed Moscow of its findings, and the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that Russia was waiting for a response from Germany to an official request on this situation. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that in a month Russia had sent Germany three requests for legal assistance on the situation with Navalny, and no answers had been received.
Berlin clinic Charite reported on September 23 that Navalny had been discharged from the hospital, his condition was satisfactory, and doctors did not rule out his complete recovery.
