MOSCOW/ROME, August 26. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in a phone call that it was unacceptable to make groundless accusations in relation to the hospitalization of blogger Alexei Navalny and pointed out that Moscow was interested in an impartial investigation of the incident, the Kremlin press service said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the phone call had been initiated by Italy.
"The parties also touched upon the situation surrounding the hospitalization of Alexei Navalny. Russia stressed that it was unacceptable to make hasty and groundless accusations in that regard and highlighted its interest in a thorough and impartial investigation of all the circumstances of the incident," the statement reads.
The Italian government press service, in turn, said that Prime Minister Conte had held "a long telephone conversation" with the Russian president, discussing "the pandemic, developments in Belarus and eastern Ukraine, the processes going on in Libya and the Navalny case, as well as bilateral relations."
On August 20, a plane carrying Navalny made an emergency landing in Omsk after the blogger had suddenly felt unwell in mid-flight. Navalny was taken to the hospital in a coma and was hooked up to a ventilator. On August 22, he was taken to Germany for treatment at Berlin’s Charite hospital. German doctors said on August 24 that they had found signs of Navalny’s intoxication with substances from the cholinesterase inhibitors group, adding that the specific substance had not been identified.