Russia’s Foreign Ministry released a lengthy “Press Release on the Anniversary of the ‘Navalny Case’” on Aug. 18, detailing “premeditated evil intent in the ‘Navalny case,’” from the beginning of the incident on Aug. 20, 2020: “August 20 marks one year since the emergency hospitalization of Russian blogger Alexey Navalny in Omsk—an incident which, through the purposeful efforts of a group of Western states, was raised to the level of an international event, which led to the bringing of unsubstantiated charges against Russia for allegedly using a ‘chemical warfare agent’ on its territory. At the same time, the actions taken by the [Federal Republic of Germany] F.R.G. authorities and their allies over the past 12 months clearly show that that a pre-planned provocation was carried out against our country to discredit the Russian Federation in the eyes of the international community and to damage its national interests.” https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4841644
The press release charged that when Russia’s prosecutors requested Germany substantiate its outrageous allegations that Russia had poisoned Navalny—with Novichok, no less—Germany’s Federal Office of Justice “largely ignored eight inquiries coming from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation for international legal assistance in the ‘Navalny case’ by not providing any meaningful answers to any of them….
“Overall, it looked like Berlin was having a laugh at our expense or a ‘bureaucratic game of ping-pong’ with Moscow. In bilateral contacts, senior officials from the German Foreign Ministry openly admitted that Berlin was not planning on providing meaningful responses to the above inquiries coming from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation. According to them, Germany considered the case with the ‘poisoning’ of the Russian blogger closed.”
