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If Alexey Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, he'd be dead already. That's according to the creators of the lethal chemical, who say the Russian opposition figure's symptoms suggest German assertions on Wednesday are inaccurate.Update, 2/9/2020 The 'someone wanted to silence Navalny' theory:
Berlin insists its Bundeswehr [military] laboratory found traces of poison from the Novichok family in the anti-corruption campaigner's system.
But the scientists behind its development - Leonid Rink and Vladimir Uglev - have dismissed the German claims. They say Novichok is supposed to be an extremely deadly nerve agent and there's no way Navalny could have survived its application. Furthermore, Uglev has pointed out that others who interacted with the Moscow protest leader after he fell ill - fellow plane passengers, ambulance crews, etc. - would also have been contaminated.
Rink told media outlet RIA Novosti. According to him, if Novichok was used:"The symptoms are absolutely not similar, Navalny would have had seizures, and he would have already died, instead of falling into a coma. "He'd be resting at the cemetery for a long time (already), that's all.According to media reports, Uglev and Rink are among the founders of the Soviet Novichok chemical weapons programme. Until 1991, both of them worked at the Volsk branch of the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology in Shikhany, part of the Saratov Region.
"I believe that the use of chemical warfare substances: sarin, soman and Novichok (A-234) can be excluded from the list of possibilities. Apart from Navalny himself, the people around him would be also stricken in one form or another."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Moscow to "answer questions that only the Russian government can answer." Describing Navalny as "the leading opposition politician in Russia," an assertion not borne out by Russian polling, she said somebody wanted to "silence" him.Update, 2/9/2020 Another flimsy reason to blame Russia without evidence or facts:
She said she had already held a phone conversation with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and before that - a joint meeting with the ministers of finance, justice, defense and the interior.
[Russian] Foreign Ministry said it was still waiting for Germany to reply to an official request from the office of Russia's Prosecutor General regarding the opposition figure's condition.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign affairs has published a statement in which it lashed out at Berlin after the German government claimed that Navalny was "poisoned" by "Novichok class nerve agent." Germany has been neglecting bilateral cooperation mechanisms that would allow Russia to investigate the situation, Moscow says.See also:"It seems that somebody restricts [the] German Justice Ministry, as well as [German] medical workers, from speaking to their Russian colleagues."Despite the fact that Russian doctors, who managed to save his life in those crucial hours, were also willing to share all their information with their German colleagues, both of the requests have remained unanswered, Moscow says."If the goal is to justify certain pre-planned 'response measures' announced earlier, it becomes clear why mouthpiece diplomacy, substitution of proper cooperation with an information campaign, public addresses to EU and NATO and mentioning of the OPCW are being used."
Navalny had problems with Pancreas
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