Western governments are considering coordinated action against Russia after Germany said gravely ill Kremlin-critic Aleksei Navalny was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said September 2 that Germany notified its EU and NATO partners about the issue in order to decide on “an appropriate, joint reaction.”
“It is certain that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime. He was meant to be silenced and I condemn this in the strongest possible terms, on behalf of the German government,” Merkel said, calling it “attempted murder by poisoning.”
Earlier, the German government said special tests conducted at a German military laboratory showed “unequivocal evidence” of the presence of a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group. The Soviet-style poison is suspected of being used in other attempts to silence outspoken Kremlin opponents.
The latest in a long line of attacks on Kremlin critics sent tensions between Moscow and the West soaring, with Russia facing a chorus of condemnation and calls to conduct a transparent investigation.
Merkel said there are now “some very serious questions that only Russia can and must answer.”
The U.S. National Security Council called the poisoning “completely reprehensible” and said Washington would work with allies “to hold those in Russia accountable, wherever the evidence leads, and restrict funds for their malign activities.”
In Congress, lawmakers called on the Trump administration to impose congressionally mandated sanctions on Russia.
“The president of the United States must coordinate a strong international response to this latest aggression along with our partners and allies,” said Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
NATO also said the findings show that Russia must conduct a “full and transparent investigation.”
“I utterly condemn the use of a military-grade nerve agent,” tweeted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. “We’ll consult with Germany and all NATO allies on the implications.”
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell described the poisoning as an “assassination attempt” and said any use of chemical weapons was “a breach of international law.”
France, Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries also called for an investigation and threatened a joint response.
Navalny’s poisoning has echoes with the case of former Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British city of Salisbury in 2018. A British investigation determined that the Skripals had been poisoned with Novichok and alleged that the attack was carried out by Russian state agents.
Referencing the Skripal case, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was “outrageous” that a chemical weapon was used against Navalny.
“We have seen first-hand the deadly consequences of Novichok in the UK,” Johnson said. “The Russian government must now explain what happened to Mr. Navalny – we will work with international partners to ensure justice is done.”
The British government expelled 23 Russian diplomats after Moscow refused to cooperate with an investigation into the Skripal poisoning. The United States and other European states expelled dozens of Russian diplomats in a coordinated response.
It was unclear what response Berlin and its allies may take against Russia, but there are growing calls for Germany to scrap the Nord Stream 2 project, a contentious underwater Baltic Sea pipeline that will bring gas from Russia to Germany.
Last week, Merkel rejected the idea that the Navalny case should be linked to Nord Stream 2.
Navalny, 44, fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20, forcing the plane he was traveling on to make an emergency landing in Omsk, where he spent two days in hospital before being evacuated to Germany. He is in a medically induced coma in an intensive care unit at Charite Hospital in Berlin and is on a respirator.
Navalny, who has been attacked several times in the past, was visiting the Siberian cities of Novosibirsk and Tomsk for his latest investigation into government corruption before he fell ill.
Navalny’s team published the results of their Siberian investigation on August 31, claiming that 18 out of 50 lawmakers in Novosibirsk are owners or represent owners of construction companies.
From the beginning, allies of Navalny have said that the Russian state was behind the poisoning.
Leonid Volkov, a Navalny aide, said on Twitter that the use of Novichok was like leaving Putin’s signature at the scene of the crime.
Ivan Zhdanov, another close Navalny ally, said on Twitter that Novichok could be administered only by Russia’s intelligence agencies.
Novichok would only be available to the “richest and most powerful,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia’s security services at the Royal United Services Institute in London, in a September 2 blog post.
“No local FSB officer or city mayor would be likely to be able to access such a nerve agent. Instead, someone would presumably need to be able to access the modern successors to the old Soviet ‘Kamera’ poisons lab,” Galeotti said, noting the SVR foreign intelligence service or FSB security service likely have access to Novichok.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov on September 2 said Russia was “ready and interested in fully cooperating and exchanging information on the matter with Germany.”
Russia has previously refused to conduct a criminal investigation into the allegation that Navalny was poisoned, saying that no hard evidence has been found.
Russian doctors in Omsk initially said they did not find any evidence of poisoning in Navalny. The doctors updated their findings on September 2, saying the activist had carbohydrate metabolism complications and pancreatitis.
Peskov reiterated that message, claiming there were no poisonous substances found in Navalny before his transfer to Germany on August 22.
Meanwhile, the Russian Embassy in Germany said so far “no substantive facts” had been provided and called on all sides to refrain from “politicization of this incident.”
With reporting by AFP, dpa, AP, and Reuters
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Radio Free | Radio Free (2020-09-03T02:02:24+00:00) West Mulls Response After Germany Says Nerve Agent Used To Poison Russian Opposition Leader Aleksei Navalny. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/09/03/west-mulls-response-after-germany-says-nerve-agent-used-to-poison-russian-opposition-leader-aleksei-navalny/
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