Russia will respond to Western sanctions over the situation with Alexei Navalny, if the partners agree to such measures. This was announced on the air of the Russia 1 TV channel by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“Nobody canceled the principle of reciprocity in international affairs”, – he recalled.
The head of Russian diplomacy stressed that Moscow would appreciate the actions of the Western states and then react. According to him, such decisions cannot be left unanswered.
Hospitalization of Navalny
Alexei Navalny’s condition worsened on August 20 on board an airplane flying from Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, after which the blogger was taken to the hospital and placed in intensive care.
Omsk doctors diagnosed him with metabolic disorders, which caused a sharp change in blood sugar levels. It was not possible to find out what caused this condition. Doctors emphasize that they considered the version of poisoning, but no confirmation of this hypothesis was found in the patient’s analyzes.
After that, Navalny was taken to Germany. The German government, citing military experts, reported that the blogger was allegedly poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group of toxic warfare agents. In this connection, the Kremlin stated that Berlin had not informed Moscow of its conclusions, and the Foreign Ministry noted that Russia was expecting a response from the FRG to an official inquiry on this situation.
At the same time, the FRG authorities did not deny that the German intelligence service BND had access to the Novichok chemical warfare agent since the 1990s. One of its developers, Leonid Rink, stated that the data on the alleged poisoning of Navalny by a new variety of Novichok was nonsense, since there were no symptoms of poisoning with this substance.
Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is interested and wants to clarify the situation, and this requires information from Berlin, which is not yet available.
He added that the investigative actions on the situation with Navalny are de facto going on, and if the presence of the poisonous substance is confirmed, then the investigation will begin de jure.
On Monday, the Berlin clinic Charite reported that Navalny’s condition improved and he was brought out of a coma.
Germany has asked the OPCW to investigate the incident with Navalny. The Russian representative to the organization, Alexander Shulgin, expressed the hope that now Germany will provide data on the basis of which conclusions were drawn about the poisoning of the blogger. At the same time, he stressed that Berlin’s reluctance to share this information under the guise of a state secret is contrary to the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention.