MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. Chairman of the Russian State Duma (parliament's lower house) commission on investigation of foreign meddling in Russian internal affairs Vasiliy Piskaryov sent a letter to the German Bundestag President Wolfgang Schauble, proposing to establish a working group to supervise the investigation of the Alexey Navalny incident.
"We propose establishing a joint commission or working group involving both Russian State Duma and Bundestag lawmakers in order to conduct parliamentary oversight of the investigation of the A. Navalny incident," the commission's address, obtained by TASS, reads.
The lawmakers say that the "massive campaign, deployed by the Western media and a number of German politicians regarding the allegedly intentional poisoning of Navalny appears to be planned in advance." They express hope that the German counterparts will take all necessary efforts to persuade the German cabinet to conduct an independent investigation and to engage in cooperation with Russia.
"It is regrettable that empty accusations and ultimatums against Russia, including those put forth by the German Federal Government in regards to the illness and hospitalization of A. Navalny, destroy the sturdy frame of our [bilateral] relations, built by several generations of Russian and German politicians," the lawmakers state.
The commission recalled that Russian lawmakers used to conduct bilateral meetings with their German colleagues at international venues, and that the law enforcement agencies of the two countries used to cooperate as well.
"We are ready to develop such cooperation further. […] We urge you, dear colleagues, to engage in joint search for reasonable solutions that will make it possible to preserve the existing groundwork for cooperation and to facilitate further development of political, economic and cultural ties in the interests of the people of Russia and Germany," the lawmakers concluded.
Navalny case
Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after collapsing on a Moscow-bound flight from Tomsk. He fell into a coma and was put on a ventilator in an intensive care unit. On August 22, he was airlifted to Berlin and admitted to the Charite hospital.
On September 2, Berlin claimed that having examined Navalny’s test samples, German government toxicologists had come to the conclusion that the blogger had been affected by a toxic agent belonging to the Novichok family.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was ready for comprehensive cooperation with Germany. He pointed out that no poisonous substances had been detected in Navalny’s system prior to his transfer to Berlin. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the German Foreign Office had not provided the Russian ambassador with any proof of its version of the incident.