Today German officials said they have ‘unequivocal proof’ that Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, the same Soviet chemical found in the poisoning death of Sergel Skripal in the English town of Salisbury.
Reminder: Navalny collapsed on a plane in Siberia last week and is in a coma in Germany.
Despite the Kremlin’s protests to the contrary, Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that they will issue a ‘joint response’ with EU and Nato, saying:
‘With this, it is certain that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime. He was meant to be silenced and I condemn this in the strongest possible manner.”
Friends of Putin’s enemy believe Navalny’s tea was spiked in an airport cafe in Tomsk before he boarded his flight.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that allegations of Kremlin involvement ‘absolutely cannot be true and are rather an empty noise’.