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NAVALNY'S ALLEGED POISONING

Russia eliminated all reserves of nerve agent Novichok — foreign intelligence chief

Poisonous substances were not present in Russian blogger Alexei Navalny’s body at the moment of his departure from Russia to Germany for treatment, the director of the foreign intelligence service stated

Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin Mikhail Japaridze/TASS

Director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin

© Mikhail Japaridze/TASS

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MOSCOW, September 15. /TASS/. Russia has eliminated all reserves of warfare agents, including the nerve agent Novichok, in accordance with the established rules, the director of the foreign intelligence service SVR, Sergei Naryshkin told the media on Tuesday.

"They [warfare agents - TASS] were eliminated in accordance with OPCW procedures and rules, which was properly documented. Any speculations Russia still produces or keeps in stock the old reserves of chemical warfare agents are disinformation, of course," he said.

Poisonous substances were not present in Russian blogger Alexei Navalny’s body at the moment of his departure from Russia to Germany for treatment, Sergei Naryshkin stated.

"No signs of presence of poisonous substances were detected in Navalny’s body, there were none. <…> When Alexei Navalny departed from Russia, his body contained no toxic or poisonous substances," he insisted.

Naryshkin’s statement follows an incident with Russian blogger Alexei Navalny, who was taken to a hospital in Omsk on August 20 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 Navalny’s test samples to arrive at the conclusion he had been affected by a Novichok class agent.

On Monday, Berlin said that EU laboratories, including those in France and Sweden, confirmed Germany’s conclusions. According to the German Foreign Ministry Navalny’s test samples were taken by experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and dispatched to the organization’s reference laboratories.

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.

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