Germany, allies tell Russia to come clean on Navalny poisoning

Germany and its allies at a meeting of the global chemical weapons watchdog are urging Russia to fully investigate and explain how opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent.

Navalny, a corruption investigator who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, was flown to Germany two days after falling ill on August 20 during a domestic flight in Russia. German officials have said labs found traces of a chemical agent from the Novichok family in the Russian politician’s system.

“It is up to Russia — where the chemical attack occurred — to shed light on the incident, and to provide an explanation on how a chemical nerve agent came to be used in a reckless act against a Russian citizen on Russian soil,” German Ambassador Gudrun Lingner says in a statement to the Executive Council meeting of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “Up to now, the Russian Federation has not provided any credible explanation.”

The closed-doors meeting, with attendance limited due to coronavirus restrictions, starts today. Written statements by many of the national delegations taking part are posted online.

— AP