Two months after Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok, President Vladimir Putin spoke out in earnest for the first time yesterday.
As usual, he did not mention Navalny by name – and said that it was hardly the Russian power that poisoned him.
– If this figurant, whom you are talking about, if the power wanted to poison someone, well then you would not let him go for care in Germany, right? Vladimir Putin said during a question-and-answer session in connection with the annual Russian Valdi conference yesterday.
Then Putin said that it was he, personally, who ordered Alexei Navalny to leave Russia for treatment abroad.
Navalny, one of President Putin’s harshest critics, fell ill quickly and fell into a coma during a trip to Siberia in August. After two days in a hospital in Omsk, he was flown to the Charité Hospital in Berlin, and a few days later the German government announced that analyzes had shown that he had been poisoned with the neurotoxin Novitjok, a chemical weapon developed in the Soviet Union.
An analysis which was subsequently confirmed by a French and a Swedish laboratory. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons later came to a similar conclusion.
Alexei Navalny recovered and has in interviews accused Vladimir Putin of being guilty of attempted murder. The EU has imposed sanctions on high-ranking officials in Russia, including in the security services and in the presidential administration. People who are believed to be responsible for the poisoning.
But the Russian side has always denied any involvement. Vladimir Putin did the same yesterday, but without once taking Navalny’s name in his mouth. He never does so, possibly with the aim of diminishing his role in Russian politics.
Alexei Navalny himself has said that he intends to return to Russia after completing his rehabilitation, even if the Russian side does everything to counteract it. Meanwhile in Germany, Navalny himself has stated that his bank accounts are frozen, citing an ongoing lawsuit.