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Germany, NATO, EU responsible for Berlin’s policy on Navalny, Moscow says

Russia also expressed its protest to the ambassador over the accusations made by the German government regarding the situation with Navalny

MOSCOW, September 9. /TASS/. Germany and its allies within NATO and the EU will bear full responsibility for Berlin’s actions in relation to the incident with Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on the outcomes of the meeting with German Ambassador to Russia Geza Andreas von Geyr.

"The federal government of the Federal Republic of Germany and its allies within NATO and the European Union will bear full responsibility for the consequences of such policy," the ministry stressed.

Russia also expressed its protest to the ambassador over the accusations made by the German government regarding the situation with Navalny. "A strong protest was declared to the ambassador over the unfounded accusations presented by the federal government of the Federal Republic of Germany against Russia in the context of the illness and hospitalization of Russian citizen Alexei Navalny, and the obvious use of his situation by Berlin as an excuse to discredit our country on the international arena," the message says.

The ministry demanded that Germany provide a detailed answer to the official request of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office dated August 27, 2020 asking to provide details on Navalny’s treatment, diagnosis and test results, and to present a copy of the patient’s medical records and biological materials for comparative research.

If Berlin does not respond to Russia’s request, the Russian Foreign Ministry will consider it a "blatant hostile provocation," which "is fraught with consequences for Russian-German relations" and may complicate the international situation, the ministry stated.

Russian opposition figure Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after collapsing on the Tomsk-Moscow flight. He fell into a coma and was hooked up to a ventilator in the intensive care unit. On August 22, he was airlifted to the Charite hospital in Berlin.

The German government later claimed that having examined Navalny’s test samples, the Bundeswehr’s toxicologists had come to a conclusion that the blogger had been affected by a toxic agent of the Novichok family. Berlin called on Moscow to clarify the circumstances of the incident, adding that it would consider potential sanctions in relation to the incident. Russia stated that it was interested in investigating what had happened to Navalny. Nevertheless, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Berlin has not presented any proof of its version of the incident yet.

On September 7, the clinic announced that Navalny is no longer comatose and that he has been taken off the artificial ventilation machine.