Daily US Times: Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition politician was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, Germany’s government says.
The German government said toxicology tests at a military laboratory showed “”unequivocal proof” of an agent from the Novichok group.
The fierce critic of Vladimir Putin was airlifted to Berlin for treatment after falling ill during a flight in Russia’s Siberia region last month. He has been in a coma since.
Mr Navalny’s team says he was poisoned on President Putin’s orders but the Kremlin has dismissed the allegation.
The German government condemned the attack in the strongest terms and called for Russia urgently to provide an explanation.
It said: “It is a disturbing development that Alexei Navalny was the victim of a chemical nerve agent in Russia.”
A statement from German government said Chancellor Angela Merkel has met senior ministers to discuss the next steps.
Russia’s Tass news agency reported that the Kremlin said it had not received any information from Germany that Mr Navalny had been poisoned using a Novichok nerve agent.
The German government said it would inform the European Union (EU) and Nato of its findings.
It said: “[The federal government] will discuss an appropriate joint response with the partners in the light of the Russian response.”
The statement said Mr Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya and Russia’s ambassador to Germany would also be informed of the findings.
What is Novichok?
In Russian, the name Novichok means “newcomer”, and applies to a group of advanced nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s.
Novichok agents have similar effects to other nerve agents – causing a collapse of many bodily functions and they act by blocking messages from the nerves to the muscles.
While some Novichok agents are liquids, others are thought to exist in solid form which means they could be dispersed as an ultra-fine powder.
Novichoks were designed to be more toxic than other chemical weapons, so some versions would begin to take effect rapidly – in the order of 30 seconds to two minutes.
Mr Navalny was thought to be poisoned at an airport. The Russian doctor checked him first denied the claims, but his supporters did not believe their saying. After huge tension, he was taken to a hospital in Germany.
Berlin’s Charite Hospital previously said Alexey Navalny’s tests indicate that he was poisoned. The hospital noted that Mr Navalny was suffering from “intoxication by a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors.”
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