UNITED NATIONS, September 11. /TASS/. The situation around Russian blogger Alexei Navalny is reminiscent of a foul play staged by someone who benefits from it, Russia’s UN envoy Vasily Nebenzya said.
"This whole incident cannot but raise questions about some foul play being staged," he said at a UN Security Council session devoted to elimination of Syria’s chemical stockpile. "This leads to an unavoidable rhetorical question Latins posed in such situations: Cui bono? Is fecit cui prodest. Who is to benefit from this, that one did it."
"Our law enforcement authorities do not have grounds to open an investigation. Our doctors who, by the way, saved Alexey Navalny did not find any chemical weapon substances in his analyses," the diplomat said, answering to calls from Western powers to carry out an investigation into the matter. "We received no evidence from Germany that would allow us to make a conclusion that it was a crime by attempted poisoning and thus start an investigation."
During the UN Security Council session on Thursday, the United States and European countries raised the issue of Navalny, although it was not on the session’s agenda. US envoy Cherith Norman Chalet urged Russia to cooperate with the international community in investigating the incident.
Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was rushed to a local hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk on August 20 after collapsing on the Tomsk-Moscow flight. He fell into a coma and was hooked up to a ventilator in the intensive care unit. On August 22, he was airlifted to the Charite hospital in Berlin. On September 2, the German government claimed that Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok-type toxic agent.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later that Russia was ready for comprehensive cooperation with Germany. He added that before Navalny was transferred to Berlin, no toxic substances had been found in his system.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Moscow was still awaiting for Berlin’s response to a request filed by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the German Foreign Ministry has so far presented no evidence to substantiate its opinnion to the Russian ambassador in the country.