MOSCOW, July 13. /TASS/. The Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) Commission on Foreign Interference in Russia’s Internal Affairs views time inconsistencies in the draft report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on the alleged poisoning of blogger Alexey Navalny as proof of Germany’s link to the anti-Russian provocation, the commission’s chairman Vasily Piskarev said.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote in her Telegram channel that the draft report of the OPCW on its activity in 2020 revealed fatal inconsistencies for the version about Navalny’s poisoning, which the Technical Secretariat was unable to explain to Moscow. 

The draft indicated that the OPCW Technical Secretariat had deployed a mission for technical assistance "in connection with the suspected poisoning of a Russian citizen" at Germany’s request on August 20, 2020 - the day of the Navalny incident. The diplomat emphasized that the drafting of Germany’s request to the OPCW had to take a considerable amount of time, as that could not have happened immediately.

"Taking cue from Maria Zakharova, we drew attention to some strange things in the OPCW report. Information that upon Germany’s request the experts joined the case on Navalny’s alleged poisoning with a warfare agent before his hospitalization in Russia requires official clarification. Now we view the OPCW report as evidence of the German authorities’ link to the provocation against Russia," Piskarev said.

The lawmaker also noted that the commission saw that Germany is not interested in "establishing the truth in this case": eight requests of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office for legal assistance in the situation with Navalny still remain unanswered. "The State Duma’s commission had submitted a request to the leadership of the German Bundestag on providing assistance in carrying out investigation. But we have not received any clear response of the Bundestag’s President, Wolfgang Schauble, so far," the MP said.

"We see the ongoing propaganda campaign conducted with the goal of slapping sanctions on Russia, and this issue remains on the commission’s agenda," Piskarev said.

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. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed out that no poisonous substances had been detected in Navalny’s system prior to his transfer to Berlin.