Berlin has been demonstrating an absolutely unacceptable attitude to Moscow’s legitimate demands and inquiries into the situation with Russian blogger Alexei Navalny, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Wednesday, TASS reported.
“Of course, we have amassed quite a few questions for our German colleagues regarding the absolutely inappropriate attitude to those official inquiries that we have sent to Berlin, including an official inquiry from the Prosecutor General’s Office to render legal assistance according to an agreement between our countries,” the top diplomat noted answering a question from TASS about the German ambassador to Russia being summoned to Russia’s Foreign Ministry.
“We are not satisfied with the essence of the reaction to our authorized, legal, and well-founded requirements to fulfill obligations under intergovernmental agreements on legal assistance, nor are we satisfied with the absolutely unacceptable tone in which the German position is being communicated to the world community,” the top diplomat stressed.
According to him, for a long time Germany has ignored Russia’s inquiries; what’s more, all of Moscow’s repeated requests have gotten an arrogant reply like “you know everything already and you should be held responsible for everything”. Russia’s chief diplomat added that recently Berlin refused to share information on the chemical analysis conducted by German military toxicologists in order not to allow Russia “to realize the extent of knowledge that the German military possesses in the sphere of chemical substances.”
Navalny’s ‘poisoning’ saga
Russian blogger Alexei Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk on August 20 after he suddenly felt ill in mid-flight traveling from Tomsk to Moscow. He fell into a coma and was then hooked up to a lung ventilator. Later, he was taken to Berlin and admitted to the Charite clinic.
On August 2, the German government said that German military toxicologists had found that Navalny had been exposed to a nerve agent belonging to the Novichok family. Berlin and its Western partners called on Moscow to clarify the circumstances of the incident and warned they would look into possible sanctions against Moscow.
The Russian side stated that it was interested in a comprehensive investigation of the Navalny case but is yet to receive any reply from Berlin to its inquiry. Additionally, Moscow emphasized that no toxic agent had been detected in Navalny’s samples before he was taken to Germany, and yet Berlin has given no evidence to back its theory.
On Tuesday, top diplomats from the G7 club urged Russia to punish those responsible for the “poisoning” of Russian blogger.
