Moscow, Russia:
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday rejected reports that Russia’s safety services have been behind the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, saying that if they have been, the opposition leader would not be alive.
Navalny, 44, fell violently ill for the duration of a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was hospitalised in the Russian city of Omsk just before becoming transported to Berlin by health-related aircraft.
Experts of quite a few Western nations concluded that the Kremlin critic was poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent — a claim that Moscow has repeatedly denied.
A joint media report this week revealed what it mentioned have been the names and images of chemical weapons professionals from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that had tailed Navalny for years.
Speaking to reporters at his annual finish-of-year press conference Putin described the report as “the legalisation of materials from the American special services”, adding that the Kremlin critic “has their support”.
The Russian leader mentioned that if Navalny was supported by US unique services, then Russia need to of course tail him.
“But this does not at all mean that it is necessary to poison him. Who needs him?” Putin mentioned.
If the Russian unique services had wanted to poison Navalny, “they would have taken it to the end,” he mentioned.
The joint report on Navalny lead by the investigative web-site Bellingcat mentioned that the FSB agents had shadowed the opposition leader on a standard basis considering the fact that 2017.
Bellingcat mentioned it had produced the conclusion primarily based on volumes of information, which includes telephone logs and travel records.
The joint report with CNN, Der Spiegel and Russian outlet The Insider did not establish any direct make contact with involving the 44-year-old opposition leader and the named agents.
In response to the poisoning, the European Union has imposed entry bans and frozen the bank accounts of six persons suspected of becoming accountable, which includes FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov.
Navalny has mentioned he will return to Russia when he has produced a complete recovery in Germany.
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