The hospital where Nalvany is treated in Germany -

Markus Schreiber / AP / SIPA

A chemist claiming to be involved in the secret Soviet program that developed the nerve agent Novichok apologized to the opponent Alexeï Navalny, victim according to the German authorities of this powerful nerve agent.

"I offer my deep apologies to Navalny for having taken part in this criminal enterprise which developed the substance which poisoned him," Vil Mirzaïanov said on Saturday, during an interview for the opposition channel TV Rain.

Now living in the United States, Vil Mirzayanov was the first to reveal the existence of Novichok in articles published in the early 1990s.

The Novichok Trinity

Victim of discomfort during a flight in Russia on August 20, Alexeï Navalny returned on Saturday to his difficult recovery in a Berlin hospital where he must relearn to speak since his suspected poisoning with this nerve agent.

Moscow rejected this possibility, despite the conclusions to this effect from German, French and Swedish laboratories.

Three former Soviet scientists, now over 70, have so far publicly claimed to have participated in the creation of Novichok.

Will Navalny make a full recovery?

"Navalny is going to have to be patient but in the end he will be healthy again", estimated Vil Mirzayanov, foreseeing a convalescence of "nearly a year".

According to him, the main opponent of the Kremlin probably swallowed the poison because it would appear that he did not infect other people.

Conversely, another scientist who participated in the creation of Novichok, Vladimir Ouglev, told the Russian investigation site Proekt that the survival of Alexeï Navalny indicated that he had been in contact with the poison through the skin, without swallowing it.

Novichok, really?

Supporters of Navalny claimed to have picked up clues in the hotel room the opponent had just left in Tomsk, Siberia, just before his discomfort at the end of August.

According to them, traces of Novichok were found by a German laboratory on a bottle of water collected from his room and sent to Germany.

A Russian scientist, presented by state media as having worked on the creation of Novichok, questioned Vil Mirzayanov's statements on Sunday.

Asked by the Ria Novosti agency, Leonid Rink maintained that Vil Mirzayanov was not involved in the creation of Novichok and that, therefore, he did not know "its biological effects".

According to Leonid Rink, the opponent Navalny was not exposed to Novichok because, if it had, "he would not have survived".

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  • Poisoning

  • Vladimir Poutine

  • Russia

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