Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, the same substance used to target former Soviet double agent Sergei Skripal, according to the German government.
Toxicology tests performed at a German Army laboratory discovered the “doubtless presence of a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel forcefully denounced the “attempted murder” of Navalny and demanded answers from Russia on Wednesday.
“It’s clear that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime. The intent was to silence him. I condemn this in the name of the whole government to the greatest possible extent,” the German leader said at a news conference.
Earlier on Wednesday, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert relayed demands for further information from the Russians.
“The German government condemns this attack in the strongest possible terms,” Seibert said in a statement. “The Russian government is urgently requested to explain what happened.”
Seibert said the Russian ambassador to Germany will be notified about the results of Navalny’s toxicology tests.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the State Department for comment about the German claims.
Navalny, a 44-year-old activist who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most well-known critics, collapsed on a plane after drinking a cup of tea at an airport in Siberia. His spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, soon claimed that Navalny had been poisoned.
After a tense period where Russian doctors prevented him from being transferred to a hospital in Europe, Navalny was eventually airlifted to a medical center in Berlin for treatment. His family and supporters feared that the Russian government was trying to keep him in Siberia to prevent details of his poisoning from becoming public.
After the poisoning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned questions about Putin’s involvement in the apparent assassination attempt as “empty noise.”
Novichok is a powerful nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union that was used in the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who survived the attack.
Skripal, who is a former Russian intelligence officer who spied for the United Kingdom, and his daughter were found slumped over on a park bench in Britain foaming from the mouth. British intelligence believes that two Russian agents were sent to smear Novichok on Skripal’s door handle.
Navalny remains hospitalized in a comatose state while being treated in Berlin.
