Russia provided its response to the request of the so-called concerned states - Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) members on the Alexey Navalny situation, and initiated its own request for Germany, France, Sweden and the OPCW Technical Secretariat, Russian Permanent Representative to OPCW Alexander Shulgin said Thursday.
"Today, effectively two days ahead of the deadline, Russia provided its worthy and legally calibrated response to the request of the 45 states," TASS cited him as saying.
"Simultaneously, we have initiated a request of our own," the diplomat said, adding that it was addressed to Germany, France, Sweden and the Technical Secretariat. "On the record and in attendance of all members of the OPCW executive committee, we once again handed over an entire list of questions to Germany, France and Sweden regarding this muddy story and their role in this spectacle they have staged themselves.
"We expect exhaustive, sufficient answers to out questions," Shulgin underscored. "The questions that we asked earlier still remain relevant today. But, new questions have risen over new details in the Navalny case situation."
Earlier, U.S. State Department announced that the US and 44 other countries sent questions to the Russian Federation about the Navalny situation via the OPCW.
Alexey Navalny was hospitalize in Omsk on August 20, 2020, after his health rapidly deteriorated aboard a plane en route from Tomsk to Moscow. Later, he was transferred to the Charite clinic in Berlin. On September 2, 2020, the German government claimed that the blogger was poisoned by a Novichok-family nerve agent. Russian authorities repeatedly underscored that no poisonous substances were detected in his body before his transfer to Berlin. Russia stated its readiness for a comprehensive cooperation in the investigation of the incident and sent several official requests on this case.
