The U.K., France, and Germany are planning to impose sanctions on Russia after the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
What We Know:
- Navalny fell gravely ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow in August. He was treated at Charite Hospital in Berlin and was released in late September. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed that Navalny had a substance similar to Novichok in his system, a Russian chemical weapon.
- Foreign ministers from France and Germany released a statement saying that “a murder attempt has been made on Russian soil, against a Russian opposition figure, using a military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia”. They intend to target “individuals deemed responsible for this crime and breach of international norms”.
- U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab released a statement siding with France and Germany’s position. He added that “Russian authorities continue to make no credible attempt to investigate this attack. There is no plausible explanation for Mr. Navalny’s poisoning other than Russian involvement and responsibility for this appalling attack.”
- The Kremlin has denied any involvement in Navalny’s poisoning, offering to cooperate in an international investigation. Russian state news agency TASS previously reported that Russia no longer produces chemical weapons and that all agents, including Novichok, were eliminated.
- Navalny, 44, is an anti-corruption activist and an opposition leader in Russian politics, and previously attempted to run for President of Russia in 2018. He told BBC News that he’s doing “much, much better” and that he would be returning to Russia eventually. He recalled collapsing on the flight from Tomsk to Moscow, saying that “it felt like the end”.
Novichok was developed by the Soviet Union as a chemical warfare agent during the 1970s. Recently, Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with Novichok in England in March of 2018.
