MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th October, 2020) Moscow regrets that Berlin launched an accusatory campaign against Russia and brought it to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Alexander Shulgin, Russia's Permanent Representative in the OPCW, said at at the 95th session of the organization's Executive Council.
The OPCW said Tuesday a substance similar to nerve agent Novichok, but not included on the lists of banned chemicals, had been found in Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny's organism. The German government said the OPCW's statement in the Navalny case confirmed his poisoning with a Novichok group substance, but admitted that the substance was not banned. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the story around Navalny continued in line with a pre-planned conspiracy scenario.
"In this case, the Russian Federation initially took the most transparent and constructive position. The German government, in turn, instead of establishing normal channels of bilateral interaction to clarify the reasons for what happened, speak to our Prosecutor General's Office, preferred to launch some kind of accusatory campaign against Russia without presenting any facts and without presenting any materials brought it to the OPCW. This is regrettable," Shulgin 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.
