THE HAGUE, December 3. /TASS/. Western nations are apparently seeking to hide a grand provocation of secret services geared to discredit Russia over the alleged poisoning of Russian blogger Alexei Navalny, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Alexander Shulgin said on Friday, summing up the results of the 26th session of the Conference of the State Parties held this week.

According to the Russian diplomat, the pretext for faultfinding with Russia during this session was the Navalny’s alleged poisoning. The Russian side, in his words, gave a tough response to each of the accusations thrown against it.

"In general, it looks like Western nations are seeking to hide something, to cover the tracks [in the situation with Navalny]," Shulgin said. "Most likely, they are seeking to hide a grand provocation of Western secret services geared to discredit Russia."

"The overanxious countries care little about the health of the Russian citizen," he said. "What they want is to find new pretexts for anti-Russian sanctions, to exert pressure on our country and force it on the back burner in the OPCW."

"We will spare no effort to counter these plans," he stressed. "We will continue to insist on answers [from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Sweden, and the OPCW technical secretariat]. We will not be sitting back and doing nothing, we will do our best to clarify this situation."

Alexey Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20, 2020, 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, the German government claimed that the blogger had been affected by a toxic agent belonging to the Novichok family. Russia’s authorities pointed out that no poisonous substances had been detected in Navalny’s system prior to his transfer to Berlin and repeatedly expressed readiness for all-round cooperation to investigate this case.