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Response to anti-Russian provocation in OPCW over Navalny case due soon — Foreign Ministry

Maria Zakharova stressed that all discrepancies in statements being made in the West about the condition of Navalny's health indicate that this affair is a "primitive and crudely staged provocation by the special services of a number of Western countries"

MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/. Moscow will promptly respond to the anti-Russian provocation in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons over the so-called blogger Alexey Navalny case, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday.

"Our response to another anti-Russian provocation will follow without delay," she said. "Our counter-demarche and the corresponding documents will soon be uploaded to the open section of the OPCW's official website."

Zakharova stressed that all discrepancies in statements being made in the West about the condition of Navalny's health indicate that this affair is a "primitive and crudely staged provocation by the special services of a number of Western countries, involving a plot to interfere in Russia's internal affairs, including the State Duma elections." She added that the Navalny affair "is brimming with obscurities, disinformation and insinuations" at the highest level on the part of the West.

The United States and another 44 countries have handed to Russia at the head office of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) a list of questions concerning the Navalny case, the US Department of State said earlier. The questions were presented in accordance with the procedure established under the Chemical Weapons Convention to which Russia is a signatory.

Navalny was taken to a hospital in Omsk on August 20, 2020, after collapsing on board a plane. Later, he was taken to Berlin for treatment. The German government on September 2, 2020, claimed that the blogger was affected by a toxic agent from the Novichok family. Berlin argued that laboratories in France and Sweden confirmed these conclusions. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly said that Moscow was ready for all-round cooperation with Germany. He stressed that before his transportation to Berlin no poisonous substances had been detected in Navalny's system.

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