MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/. The European Parliament’s statements indicate that foreign intelligence agencies are behind the Alexey Navalny incident, Russian State Duma (parliament's lower house) speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Friday.
"After the European Parliament's statements, one can say that foreign states’ intelligence agencies are behind the [Russian blogger Alexey] Navalny incident. If such concepts as democracy and international law exist for the Western countries, they must take measures and hold those who initiate such decisions in the European Parliament responsible," Volodin said.
In this regard, Volodin once again called on the German Bundestag to "once again discuss to what extent their intelligence agencies and officials are involved in the ongoing events."
"Other European parliaments would also do well to clear this issue," Volodin concluded.
On Thursday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in regards to the Navalny incident, calling for "immediate launch of <...> an impartial international investigation" with involvement of the EU, UN, the Council of Europe, the EU allies and the OPCW. The European Parliament urged the EU to adopt a vast sanctions list against Russia as soon as possible, as well as to suspend the Nord Stream 2 pipeline construction.
EP resolutions are non-binding and act as recommendations.
On August 20, Alexey Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk after his condition deteriorated rapidly aboard a plane. Later, the blogger was transferred to the Charite clinic in Berlin. The German government claimed that the blogger was poisoned with a Novichok-class substance. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow is open for cooperation with Berlin on the incident, while the Foreign Ministry noted that Berlin provided no proof of its allegations.