Novichok-tainted bottle found in Russian opposition leader’s room, colleagues say

MOSCOW — Colleagues of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny say that a bottle of water with a trace of the Novichok nerve agent was found in his hotel room after his poisoning.

Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on August 20 and was flown to Germany, where he was kept in an induced coma for more than two weeks as he was treated with an antidote. Members of his team accused the Kremlin of involvement in the poisoning, charges that Russian officials have vehemently denied.

The Kremlin has bristled at calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders to answer questions about the poisoning, urging Germany to provide evidence of his poisoning.

On Tuesday, Navalny posted a picture of himself from his bed in Berlin’s Charite Hospital, hugged by his wife and children. “I still can’t do almost anything on my own, but yesterday I managed to breathe on my own for the entire day,” he added in the post.

A video posted on Navalny’s Instagram today shows his team working around his hotel room in Tomsk before he left the city and collapsed on a flight back to Moscow.

Navalny’s Instagram says they returned to the room an hour after learning that he had become ill, accompanied by a lawyer, and packed the bottles and other items for further inspection.

“Two weeks later, a German laboratory found a trace of Novichok on a bottle from the Tomsk hotel room,” they say. “And then another three labs that took Alexei’s samples proved that he was poisoned with it. Now we understand: It was done before he left his room to go to the airport.”

— AP