• Berlin: Russian opponent Navalny poisoned with "Novichok group nerve agent"

  • Alexei Navalny case, the Kremlin: "We don't need a proper investigation"

  • Germany, Berlin hospital: "Evidence of Alexei Navalny's poisoning found"

  • Navalny, police sources reveal: he was under surveillance during the trip to Siberia

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03 September 2020 "There is no reason to accuse Russia of having played a role in the poisoning of Aleksei Navalny".

This was stated by the spokesman of the Kremlin, Dimitri Peskov.

"Russia does not want Germany to jump to conclusions without talking about the matter," he added.

Peskov also claims that "no one benefited from Navalny's poisoning."



Merkel's statements yesterday


"Very serious questions are emerging that only the Russian government can and must answer".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said this after confirming the poisoning of the opponent Alexei Navalny with a nerve agent.

"The German government - he declared in a statement - strongly condemns this crime and urgently requires an explanation from the Russian government".

The statement then reads that the Berlin government will inform its EU and NATO partners of the results of the investigation, discussing "an appropriate joint reaction".



The Russian position


"The statement of the German Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on the situation to the opposition activist Aleksei Navalny could indicate that the German specialists have achieved some significant results in the study of Navalny's state of health, however, Russia cannot carry out assessments without being aware of these results, "Kremlin spokesman Peskov said.

"Obviously, if the Federal Chancellor makes such statements, then the specialists must have presented some substantial results from their studies," Peskov added.

"However, we cannot make assessments without knowing what these results are," he insisted.

"Hopefully the causes of this incident will be established; we are interested in doing it, we want it and we need information from Germany to do it. Information we haven't had yet," Peskov added.



The Kremlin spokesman insisted that "no toxic substances" had been detected by Russian doctors during Navalny's initial admission to a Siberian hospital in late August.

"I don't think, in general, that the poisoning of this person can benefit anyone", he specified.

"We would like our partners in Germany and other European countries not to make hasty judgments," he insisted.

The Kremlin spokesman also assured that he saw "no reason" to impose sanctions against Russia in this affair.



Ischinger: "No to the wall between the West and Moscow"


Wolfgang Ischinger is against a boycott of Russia on the Navalny case.

"We need Russia for climate policy, for Ukraine and in many other areas. We cannot now build a wall between the West and Moscow," the director of the Munich Security Conference told the Ard.

The case, he added, requires an appropriate response from the German government: "In the measures against Russia, Germany must find an intermediate point between diplomatic gestures and a total boycott," stressed the former ambassador to the United States.

"If we want to send a clear message to Moscow, then economic relations must also be on the agenda. And this means that North Stream 2 cannot be excluded", even if the construction of the pipeline is in the final stages and stopping the project would be " a very complex issue ".



Roettgen: "Europe adopts a common and clear position"


Germany calls on its allies to adopt a common response to the case of the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny after toxicological tests conducted on the opposition politician hospitalized in the Charité hospital in Berlin have confirmed nerve agent poisoning.

The president of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Bundestag, Norbert Roettgen, today asked Europe to have a clear, hard and unambiguous position on the matter.

"Once again we have been brutally confronted with the inhuman reality of the Putin regime", he said speaking on the Ard in the aftermath of the announcement by the German authorities and the summoning of the Russian ambassador to Berlin by the German Foreign Ministry.