MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. Alexey Navalny’s life was saved not as a result of a fortunate coincidence, his survival should be attributed entirely to the impeccable action taken by Russian air pilots and medics, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the RTVI channel in an interview. An extract of the conversation was uploaded to the Foreign Ministry’s website on Monday.
"Some of your Western colleagues has written that, as German doctors have found out, Navalny’s salvation was a miracle. Allegedly the notorious Novichok agent was involved, but the Russian survived thanks to a fortunate coincidence. What’s the reason for calling it a fortunate coincidence? Firstly, the pilot made an urgent landing. Second, there was an ambulance van waiting for the patient on the airfield, thirdly, the doctors started doing their job at once," he said.
"The air pilots, the doctors, the ambulance team were impeccable. For some reason this is presented as a fortunate coincidence. In other words, they refuse to recognize that we acted the way we should. This is ingrained deeply in the minds of those who invent such things," Lavrov said.
Navalny was taken to a hospital in Omsk after feeling unwell on a plane en route from Tomsk to Moscow. He sank into a coma and was put on a lung ventilator. Later, he was brought to Berlin’s Charite hospital.
On September 2, the German government claimed that Bundeswehr toxicologists had studied Navanlny’s test samples to arrive at the conclusion he had been affected by a Novichok class agent.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was prepared for all-round cooperation with Berlin. He stressed that no poisonous substances had been identified in Navalny’s body before his transportation to Germany. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the German Foreign Ministry had presented no proof to the Russian ambassador.