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NAVALNY'S ALLEGED POISONING

There were no toxic substances in Navalny’s body when he was in Russia — intel chief

The director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service dismissed remarks by blogger Alexey Navalny that he was allegedly poisoned by the Russian special services as Russophobic propaganda

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Head Sergei Naryshkin Sergei Karpukhin/TASS

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Head Sergei Naryshkin

© Sergei Karpukhin/TASS

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MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. Moscow has confirmation that there were no toxic substances in the body of Alexey Navalny while he was in Russia, Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin told TASS on Thursday.

"We can assert that there were no toxic substances in his body at the time when blogger Navalny was in Russia. This is an indisputable fact. Russia has confirmation in the form of samples of Navalny’s biological material," he stressed.

"In general, I can say the following. The doctors of the Omsk hospital who saved blogger Navalny’s life conducted a comprehensive examination of the state of his body, and no toxic substances that could cause any degree of poisoning, the more so the severe degree of poisoning, were found," Naryshkin pointed out.

He noted that Navalny had not been accompanied by SVR or FSB officers when he was on board the German plane and later on, in Germany. "Representatives of law enforcement agencies and other services of another country or other countries apparently remained nearby," he added.

The director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service dismissed remarks by blogger Alexey Navalny that he was allegedly poisoned by the Russian special services as Russophobic propaganda. "One hardly expected something resembling the truth from that person," he said when asked to comment on Navalny’s statements. "That’s why I believe it is pointless to comment on such blatant Russophobic propaganda."

Navalny earlier claimed that he could only be poisoned by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) or the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on instructions from Russian President Vladimir Putin, since the Novichok agent is difficult to obtain.

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 22, Navalny was discharged from the 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. According to Germany, these findings were confirmed by laboratories in France and Sweden.

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