The police are investigating the health problems of two exiled Russian women in connection with a conference critical of the Kremlin in Berlin. The state security at the State Criminal Police Office had taken over the investigation, said a spokesman for the police in Berlin on Sunday, after first the "Welt am Sonntag" had reported. State security is responsible for politically motivated crimes. The police did not provide any further information on the procedure.
According to the "Welt am Sonntag", it is about a conference of the Russian Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the end of April in Berlin, in which the two women had participated. However, the symptoms of an affected person could have occurred before the conference, the report said. She went to the Charité University Hospital in Berlin. According to the newspaper, the second victim reported "strange symptoms" on Facebook and suspected that she had been poisoned. In the meantime, she is back in her adopted home, the USA, where the FBI is investigating, according to the woman.
One of the best-known opponents of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, opposition politician Alexei Navalny, was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok during a trip to Siberia in the summer of 2020. At the time, he was being treated at the Charité hospital in Berlin. According to the investigative network Bellingcat, the Russian secret service FSB was behind the poisoning. The Kremlin denied the allegations.
fla/dpa