Moscow denies allegations of the alleged deliberate poisoning of Alexei Navalny, as indicated in a secret report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This is stated in a statement on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The ministry stressed that the absence in the report of data on the chemical composition and characteristics of the substances “testifies to the unsubstantiated claims of the politician's” poisoning “. It is noted that without these data, the Russian side cannot complete a pre-investigation check to determine the signs of a possible corpus delicti.
“According to the German side, the purpose of concealing this information is to prevent the dissemination of information about substances not included in the chemical annex to the Chemical Weapons Convention,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The argumentation in the document was perceived by the OPCW as purely formal and designed to justify Berlin's refusal to respond to Moscow's requests.
On October 15, the EU imposed sanctions on six Russians and one research institute over the Navalny case. Following the EU, the UK imposed restrictions.
Earlier in October, OPCW specialists confirmed the conclusion of colleagues from the Bundeswehr laboratory that Navalny had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group. It was reported that the formula of the poison is not completely identical to the formula of Novichok, which was used by former GRU employee Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018. Thus, it is not included in the list of the Annex to the Chemicals Convention. The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the OPCW of bias.
Navalny became ill on August 20 during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. In the first two days, doctors from the Omsk hospital helped him. They also introduced him to an artificial coma. On August 22, the patient was sent to a clinic in Berlin, whose doctors announced the discovery of traces of a substance from the Novichok group in Navalny's body. In September, Navalny was brought out of a coma and discharged; after rehabilitation, he intends to return to Russia.
