MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th October, 2020) The masterminds of the provocation involving the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny have driven the European Union into a dead end, with European officials now trying to discuss sanctions against Russia while speaking of the EU's interest in relations with Moscow, Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian upper house's foreign affairs committee, said on Tuesday.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told RIA Novosti in an interview that the incident with Navalny was not just a bilateral issue between Berlin and Moscow, but a matter for the whole international community. According to Maas, Russia has "done little" to establish truth over the poisoning of its opposition leader. At the same time, Germany remains interested in maintaining good or "at least reasonable" relations with Russia, despite the incident with Navalny, Maas added.
"The authors of the provocation with Navalny, whoever they may have been, have so far achieved only one thing - they have thoroughly driven the European Union into a dead end," Kosachev said on Facebook.
According to him, on the one hand, officials in Brussels speak about sanctions against Russia without providing any details, and on the other hand, such prominent figures as EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Maas have said that the incident with Navalny "does not change geography and therefore does not change our [the EU's] fundamental interest in good or at least reasonable relations with Russia."
The Russian opposition figure was hospitalized with suspected poisoning in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after feeling unwell during a domestic flight. While Russian doctors found no traces of poisons in his samples and suggested he could have suffered an abrupt drop of glucose in his blood due to metabolic disbalance, Germany � where Navalny was subsequently transported to for treatment � claims to have evidence of his poisoning with a nerve agent from the Novichok group. In response, Russia has demanded that Germany provide evidence and make case materials available to Russian investigators.
Navalny was discharged from the Charite hospital in Berlin on September 23. He has claimed that the Kremlin is behind his poisoning. Russia has slammed the whole case as a plotted conspiracy theory, pointing to multiple inconsistencies in Berlin's statements and the extreme politicization of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Last week, the OPCW confirmed Navalny's samples contained traces of a toxic substance, albeit not one of those registered by the organization as prohibited.
