Russian President Vladimir Putin September 1 in the Kremlin.

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Mikhail Klimentyev / AP / SIPA

There is no basis for opening an investigation in Russia into the poisoning of the main Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, the victim of an alleged attack with a nerve agent in the summer, estimated the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, this Thursday.

"If a person almost died, that does not mean that every time a criminal investigation has to be opened," he said at a meeting Thursday of the Advisory Council for Human Rights at the Kremlin , the full verbatim of which was released on Friday.

The Novichok involved?

At the end of August, the opponent and anti-corruption activist Alexeï Navalny was seriously unwell during a flight in Siberia.

After two days of hospitalization, he was authorized for emergency treatment in Germany, under pressure from his relatives.

According to three European laboratories, notably French and German, whose conclusions have been confirmed by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Alexeï Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent from the Novichok group, a substance designed by specialists Soviets for military purposes.

Still recovering in Germany, the opponent accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being behind his poisoning, an accusation refuted by Moscow.

Russian diplomacy has also repeatedly accused Europeans of not wanting to transmit Alexeï Navalny's medical data to Russia, denouncing their refusal to cooperate in this matter.

Russia will "with pleasure to investigate this matter, and to do it thoroughly"

“The Russian Public Prosecutor's Office has repeatedly asked his (European) colleagues to send at least one official written conclusion made at the end of their examinations,” Vladimir Poutine recalled.

"Our experts are ready to go abroad - to France, to Germany - (...) to these experts who claim to have found military toxic substances", he assured.

"But nobody invites us (…) and we are not given official data or biological materials", continued Vladimir Poutine.

According to the master of the Kremlin, Russia will "with pleasure investigate this matter, and do it thoroughly".

"Show us where this Novichok is!"

», Launched the Russian president.

“But no one gives us anything (…) and that's the problem,” he stressed.

According to the versions, the Russian authorities had in the past rejected any poisoning or sometimes accused the Western secret services, the relatives of Alexeï Navalny or the opponent himself of being the authors.

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