France, Estonia, Germany, Belgium, Great Britain sent a letter to the UN with an appeal to Russia to “disclose the circumstances of the attack” on opposition leader Alexei Navalny. This was reported on October 2 by RIA Novosti with reference to the text of the document.
It is noted that the letter was sent to UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres and Security Council Chairman Abdu Abarri.
The signatories to the document, referring to the conclusion of German experts that Navalny was allegedly poisoned by a nerve agent from the Novichok group, said that the incident “with the use of chemical weapons” posed a threat to international peace and security.
“We call on the Russian Federation to disclose urgently, fully and transparently the circumstances of this attack and to inform the Security Council in this regard,” the text says.
Earlier on Friday, the leaders of the EU member states at a summit in Brussels condemned the “use of chemical weapons” in the situation with Alexei Navalny.
Charles Michel, President of the European Council, called the incident an “assassination attempt” and noted that the European Council will discuss in detail what happened at the next summit in mid-October.
Navalny felt unwell when he flew from Tomsk to Moscow on August 20. The plane urgently landed in Omsk, the patient was taken to the emergency hospital No. 1, and later transported to the Charite clinic in Berlin.
In Germany, it was reported that a Russian had signs of intoxication with a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors. Omsk doctors during the examination of the patient did not reveal intoxication with this substance. On September 23, Navalny was discharged from the hospital.
On September 2, the German government announced that Navalny had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group. There was no evidence of this. Berlin does not respond to official requests from the Russian side. In Germany, they said they had transferred the results of the analyzes of the Russian blogger to the OPCW.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly called on Germany to cooperate. On September 9, the department expressed a strong protest to German Ambassador Gez Andreas von Gaire, noting that the situation is being used to discredit the Russian Federation in the international arena.
On October 1, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said that Germany should cooperate with Russia to investigate the incident with the blogger, and not turn to the Security Council of an international organization on this issue.