MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. Moscow’s response to the EU sanctions over the incident with blogger Alexey Navalny will be proportionate, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview to the radio stations Sputnik, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Govorit Moskva on Wednesday.
"We will respond proportionately. Yes, it is the established diplomatic practice. The response will be diplomatic," Lavrov said in reply to a question.
He stressed that Germany had no intention of presenting any facts in defiance of all international legal obligations.
As for the expulsions of Russian diplomats from a number of European countries Lavrov said that they became "a sign of good behavior towards the United States and Britain."
"We conclude that our partners’ decision on expulsion of Russian diplomats over allegations of espionage or whatever reflect not only the diplomatic practice, but also the susceptibility to Russophobic tendencies, which the Americans seek to impose in Europe, in order to discourage Europe from the Russian gas, Russian military produce and many other things," Lavrov said. "And to replace all this with their own goods, which are more expensive, but the countries that agree to this deal will feel safer, because the Americans would not pester them too much for a while."
Navalny case
Russian blogger Alexey 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. Germany argued that those conclusions were confirmed by laboratories in France and Sweden.
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.