Citing new test results, Germany said Wednesday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is being treated in a Berlin hospital, was poisoned with a Novichok, a chemical nerve agent.
Toxicology tests carried out by the German army on Navalny (44) have provided “unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok family,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia last month. He was initially treated in a local hospital before being flown to Germany for medical treatment.
Navalny’s allies have insisted he was deliberately poisoned by the Russian authorities.
It should be mentioned here that the nerve agent Novichok is a military-grade poison that was developed by the Soviet government towards the end of the Cold War.
