Comment by the Information and Press Department on the developments around Alexey Navalny
We noted the fairly predictable and prompt response with which German officials agreed to the publication of a report on the results of a study on Alexey Navalny’s bio materials on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) website. These results were received shortly before, probably, timed to the beginning of the OPCW Executive Council session.
Thus, this essentially fantastic story, initiated at Berlin’s prompting by its Euro-Atlantic allies in cooperation with the heads of the OPCW Technical Secretariat, received a continuation under the pre-planned conspiracy scenario.
Following the military laboratories of Germany, France and Sweden, now another two laboratories appointed by the OPCW Technical Secretariat, which are, judging by everything, also linked to the military-political structures of the Euro-Atlantic community, have confirmed the presence of certain cholinesterase inhibitors in Navalny’s bio materials. It is stated that these inhibitors are similar in their structural characteristics to two chemicals controlled by the Chemical Weapons Convention but as distinct from them, are not included on its lists.
The Russian Federation intends to distribute its vision of the situation on Germany’s cooperation with the OPCW Technical Secretariat, at the current session of the Executive Council. It will present the chronology of backstage manipulations by the main actors in this play to the participants of the Chemical Weapons Convention. We would also like to remind you that the inquiries sent by the Prosecutor-General’s Office of the Russian Federation to the German authorities in accordance with the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters remain unanswered and are supposedly still under review.
We hope the upcoming efforts of the Russian specialists and their OPCW colleagues will make it possible to develop calm, depoliticised cooperation and avoid further escalation of tension around this issue.
When it comes to arms control, the previous US administration worked consistently and systematically to destroy the agreements which prevented Washington from arbitrarily building up, projecting and using military force and which it saw as an obstacle on its way to “victory” in the “great power rivalry” it itself declared.
This is our traditional news conference on the foreign policy outcomes of 2020. It is traditional, but remote. We opted for a format that was widely used over the past year due to the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions imposed in almost all countries, including Russia.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We had substantive and meaningful talks. We discussed the further development of the friendly and trustworthy relations between our countries in accordance with the agreements reached during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Riyadh in the autumn of 2019, and subsequent telephone conversations at top level.
Citizens of Russia, friends, The year 2020 will be over in just a few minutes. As we were welcoming it a year ago today, just like people around the world, we thought and dreamed of changes for the better. No one could have imagined back then what kind of trials would come our way. Now, it appears that the outgoing year has taken in the burden of many years. It was a difficult year for all of us, with worries and serious financial difficulties, bitter experiences and, for some, loss of the loved ones.
In 2020, Russia’s foreign policy focused on making better use of the potential for international cooperation in the interests of protecting national security, promoting the country’s socioeconomic development and encouraging approaches to current global and regional problems that meet the interests of Russia.
We consider the adoption by the European Union at the behest of its leading Member States of illegitimate restrictive measures against some of our fellow citizens under the pretext of their alleged involvement in the incident with Russian citizen Alexei Navalny to be absolutely unacceptable.
On October 1, we sent a request to Fernando Arias, Director-General of the OPCW and head of its Technical Secretariat, for technical assistance under Clause 38 (е) of Article VIII of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Two and a half months later, we are still waiting for a meaningful response. Their explanation is the absence of the German authorities’ permission for full-scale cooperation between the agency’s experts and competent Russian organisations to clarify the circumstances of what Berlin describes as the poisoning of the blogger. Russia’s suggestions regarding the main modalities of a planned visit of OPCW Technical Secretariat’s representatives to Russia have been rejected as well.
Moscow has taken note of a statement made by US Secretary of State’s Special Envoy for Syria Joel Rayburn to the effect that Russia and the Assad regime are aggravating the problem of terrorism in Syria. He has accused Moscow and Damascus, without any substantiation, of involvement in the bombing and artillery raids on Idlib, which allegedly do not target terrorists but innocent civilians, infrastructure and armed opposition groups. He has also said that he believes that Russia and the Damascus regime are not doing enough to combat terrorism.
We were puzzled by the decision announced by the British government on December 10, 2020 to impose sanctions against three Russian individuals and a unit of the National Guard over the alleged human rights violations in the Chechen Republic.
Regrettably, the US authorities have decided to celebrate Human Rights Day, which is marked on December 10, by adopting new sanctions against Russian individuals and entities.
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