MOSCOW, September 7. /TASS/. The Kremlin has castigated a US proposition of creating a "Navalny list" in order to pile on more sanctions, and has pointed out that pinning the blogger’s ill-fated incident on Russia’s leadership is unacceptable, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday.
"There have been many absurd initiatives on the right and on the left," Peskov said in the wake of the proposal by The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens for creating a "Navalny list", similar to the Magnitsky list.
Peskov called for a sober attitude to the situation.
"The attempts to somehow associate Russia or the Russian leadership with what has happened are unacceptable to us and essentially absurd," he said.
In response to support voiced for the idea of a Navalny list by the founder of Britain’s Hermitage Capital Foundation, William Browder, Peskov remarked: "It would’ve been strange, if such a person as Browder, who is wanted in Russia for tax and other crimes, had not backed such absurd proposals." Peskov refrained from speculating about Moscow’s likely retaliatory steps, should such a list emerge.
"Such hypothetical speculations are hardly possible here," he said.
Alexei Navalny was taken to a hospital in Omsk on August 20 after feeling unwell on board a plane en route from Tomsk to Moscow. He fell into a coma and was put on a lung ventilation machine. Later he was taken to the Charite hospital in Berlin. The German government claimed that military virologists had studied Navalny’s test samples to arrive at the conclusion he had been affected by a Novichok class nerve agent.