The German government refused to provide information on the alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny to the Bundestag deputies.

In particular, the German authorities rejected requests made by the Left and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) parties, citing confidentiality and state secrets.

“In addition to condemning the arrest of Navalny after his return to Russia, the German government is not acting transparently enough and is largely silent on the Navalny case,” Amira Mohamed Ali, co-chair of the parliamentary faction of the German Left Party, said in an interview with RT DE.

The request to the FRG government was sent by the foreign policy speaker of the Left, Gregor Gizi, and concerned the processing of the RF request for legal assistance in the Navalny incident.

The German socialists hoped to understand what was hindering cooperation between the two states.

“It looks like there are some gaps here.

It remains unclear what are the motives of the FRG government, which clearly did not fully comply with Russia's requests for legal assistance.

I am afraid that without closer cooperation between Germany and Russia, there will be no progress in the Navalny case, ”says Amira Mohamed Ali.

The deputy considers such an opaque policy of the federal government unacceptable.

She stressed that the executive authorities of Germany are obliged to inform the deputies of the Bundestag.

Earlier, two inquiries on the situation with the Navalny case were sent by the parliamentary group of the AfD.

However, the deputies also did not receive comprehensive answers under the pretext of confidentiality. 

Silence of Berlin

In an interview with TASS on January 19, Russian Ambassador to Berlin Sergei Nechaev called on the FRG authorities to refrain from “artificially politicizing” the Navalny case.

The diplomat recalled that the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation sent several inquiries to the German Ministry of Justice.

The Russian side received an answer to them almost five months later.

At the same time, as noted by Nechayev, the documents handed over by the German side are of a formal nature and do not contain "any specific materials and conclusions."

“This clearly indicates a reluctance to help clarify the objective picture of what happened.

Against this background, the demands addressed to us - to fully investigate the circumstances of the incident with Mr. Navalny - look at least strange, "Nechaev stated.

  • Russian Ambassador to Berlin Sergei Nechaev

  • RIA News

  • © Nikolay Filyakov

On January 21, in its Telegram channel, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation announced that it had sent the fifth request to its German colleagues.

This decision was made following a study of the materials received from the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany.

They, as the Russian department explains, turned out to be meaningless.

“Since most of the petitions of the Russian investigative body were rejected, and the transferred protocols of interrogation of A.A. Navalny.

and his wives turned out to be meaningless, the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia regarded this as a complete non-fulfillment of Russian requests for legal assistance on formal grounds, ”the ministry said in a statement.

- The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation regarded the transfer of such materials and the statement of the official representative of the Ministry of Justice of the Federal Republic of Germany on the proper fulfillment of its obligations for legal assistance as factual evidence of the concealment of "the true circumstances of the incident."

In an interview with RT, Pavel Feldman, deputy director of the RUDN Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts, said that the German government is purposefully hiding detailed information on the incident with Navalny, fearing to share with it even with the Bundestag deputies.

“At least the German special services possess all the necessary information, which means that the government of the country has it.

Berlin's silence can be explained by two factors.

The first is the reluctance to disclose certain confidential information and disclose personal data.

The second, apparently more significant, is the lack of political gain, ”says Feldman.

According to the expert, Berlin realizes that the provision of comprehensive information on Navalny to its own deputies will certainly provoke a lot of additional questions and claims.

Alexander Kamkin, a leading researcher at the Center for German Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believes that the classification of information by the German government is an attempt to conceal truly important information.

In a commentary on RT, the expert noted that such behavior of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Federal Republic of Germany leads to suspicions that the authorities are not interested in the most objective and open investigation of the incident with Navalny.

“Of course, this position of Germany raises many questions.

Involuntarily, an association arises with the notorious "poisoning" of the Skripals, where the British accused Russia without providing any concrete evidence ... There are a lot of inconsistencies in this case, "Kamkin stated.

"Methods of diplomatic rudeness"

Recall that Navalny's condition deteriorated sharply on board the plane, which was heading from Tomsk to Moscow on August 20, 2020.

The liner made an emergency landing in Omsk, where the blogger was hospitalized.

Later he was sent to the German clinic Charite.

On September 2, the FRG authorities reported that a laboratory of the German Armed Forces found in Navalny's body a nerve agent from the Novichok group.

The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation requested the blogger's biomaterials from the German side for its own research, but they were never provided.

  • Alexey Navalny

  • RIA News

  • © Valery Melnikov

Russian law enforcement agencies are conducting an investigation into the incident with Navalny.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin explained in December 2020 at a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, a criminal case was not opened due to the lack of biomaterials and the necessary official documents from the investigation.

“The check is being carried out.

It's just that we cannot do this within the framework of a criminal case, because there are no materials ... Ours are ready to come abroad - to France, Germany, and the Netherlands - to specialists who claim that poisonous warfare agents have been found there.

Nobody invites us.

We invited them - they don't come to us.

Official materials are not given.

They don't give biological materials, ”Putin said.

In mid-January, during an online press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also pointed out that the West is refusing civilized interaction with Moscow, automatically labeling it a "poisoner."

“They don't give us anything about Navalny.

Listen, if you want to know the truth, then be polite people and be law-abiding.

Live up to your commitments.

Do not use the methods of diplomatic rudeness, declaring: "We will not give you anything, you are poisoners by definition."

We will not talk like that, ”Lavrov stressed.

According to the Russian Foreign Minister, Western states are trying to divert public attention from crisis phenomena in their own political systems.

For this reason, according to Lavrov, the situation with Navalny has completely artificially moved to the foreign policy plane.

According to experts, the incident with the blogger served as another reason for a wave of accusations against Russia and threats to impose new sanctions.

According to Alexander Kamkin, such a policy seriously complicates the normalization of the dialogue between Moscow and the EU.

“Western politicians are making Navalny a prisoner of conscience, a martyr for democratic reforms, but the truth is hidden behind seven seals.

Apparently, such a line is being followed by the West as part of a course aimed at interfering in Russia's internal affairs and the upcoming Duma campaign, ”Kamkin says.

This view is shared by Pavel Feldman.

The expert believes that the situation with Navalny is largely artificially “inflated” by the West, despite extremely dubious conclusions about his “poisoning”.

At the same time, the interlocutor of RT does not expect a deterioration in relations between the Russian Federation and Germany.

“In principle, Germany made it quite clear that for the sake of a character like Navalny and ideological considerations, it will not quarrel with Moscow and sacrifice its own strategic and economic interests.

Ideally, all parties should breathe out and not spoil the relationship because of such controversial stories as the incident with Navalny, "Feldman summed up.