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Putin issued personal instructions to let Navalny be transported to Germany — Kremlin

According to the spokesman, the president's involvement was needed to override the restrictions on the blogger’s foreign travels

MOSCOW, October 23. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin issued personal instructions to the Prosecutor General’s Office to let Alexey Navalny be flown to Berlin; that was necessary to override the effective restrictions on the blogger’s foreign travels, Russian presidential spokesman, Dmitry Peskov told the media on Friday.

"The president said he had contacted the Prosecutor General’s Office on the issue, because at that moment there existed certain restrictions on Navalny’s right to leave the country. In that sense, yes, that could be done only by the president," Peskov said when asked if the Kremlin in reality took greater care of Navalny’s fate than it had been mentioned before.

At the same time Peskov said that if the legal aspects of the affair were to be left aside, "the president had nothing to do at all with the decision to move the patient and the permission for his transportation."

"All that was entirely the doctors’ prerogative," he said.