Russia’s embassy in Germany has called on partners to refrain from politicization of the incident with Russian opposition blogger Alexei Navalny and base their statements only on facts.
“We expect the German side to give a prompt answer to the August 27, 2020 inquiry to the German ministry of justice from the Russian prosecutor general’s office on legal assistance within a prove into Navalny’s hospitalization conducted by Russian law enforcement agencies. We call on partners to refrain from politicization of this incident, to rely only on facts and we hope such verified facts will soon be provided. We hope for comprehensive cooperation and information exchange with the use of the existing bilateral legal mechanisms,” the embassy said on Wednesday.
The embassy recalled that Ambassador Sergei Nechayev had been summoned to the German foreign ministry but “no substantive facts” had been provided.
Navalny felt sick on August 20 while flying from Tomsk to Moscow and the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. The man was taken to hospital in a state of coma and was connected to a ling ventilator. He was airlifted to the Berlin-based Charite clinic in the morning on August 22. Its doctors said that indicators of poisoning had been found in his body. According to the doctors, the symptoms of poisoning have gradually abated.
Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said earlier that Russia was ready for comprehensive cooperation with Germany in order to clarify the situation around the Russian blogger. He noted that no toxic agent had been identified before Navalny was taken to Berlin. The Russian foreign ministry said that Moscow continued to wait for Germany to respond to the inquiry from the Russian prosecutor general’s office.