Alexei Navalny hit with nerve agent, says Germany

Berlin hospital treating Alexei Navalny say he has been poisoned with a substance found in nerve agents and pesticides.

Yulia Navalnaya, left, arrives on Monday with a companion at Berlin’s Charite hospital, where her husband Alexei Navalny is been treated. Picture: Getty Images

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on Russia to investigate an attack on opposition figure Alexei Navalny after German­ doctors determined that he had been poisoned with a toxic nerve agent, heightening tension between Moscow and the West.

The exact circumstances surrounding the poisoning of Mr Navalny­ remain a mystery, but the politician, who has challenged the Kremlin elite for more than a decade, had no shortage of enemies.

Mrs Merkel and Foreign Minister­ Heiko Maas called on Russian authorities to conduct an open and transparent investigation into the attack on Mr Navalny, citing his leading role in Russia’s political opposition.

“Those responsible must be identified and brought to justice,” they said on Tuesday AEST.

Tensions have grown between Moscow and the West in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its meddling in the 2016 US elect­ion and strong-arm tactics to quell domestic opposition.

But analysts say evidence of foul play in Mr ­Navalny’s sudden illness didn’t make it more likely that his attackers would be uncovered and brought to justice.

Doctors at Berlin’s Charite hospital­ said late on Monday they were treating Mr Navalny with atropine, an antidote that is used to treat nerve gas and pesticide poisonings.

They said that the outcome of the treatment was uncertain, that Mr Navalny could suffer long-term side effects and that they were conducting examinations to determine the specific toxin.

“The patient is in intensive care and still in an induced coma,” the Charite hospital said. “His medical condition is serious but his life is not in immediate danger.”

Earlier Mrs Merkel’s spokesman used unusually blunt language to describe Mr Navalny’s condition and suggested there could be a link to the Kremlin.

“The suspicion is that someone poisoned Mr Navalny, and unfortunately there have been several examples of poisoning in Russia’s recent history,” Steffen Seibert said in Berlin.

In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence offic­er, was poisoned with a nerve agent in Salisbury, England. British authorities presented evidence and video of Russian military intelligenc­e agents in Salisbury at the time, leading to sanctions against Moscow, including the expulsio­n of Russian diplomats. Russian officials and state media denied any connection.

After Mr Navalny took ill last week, a popular Russian tabloid wrote that he had been out the night before drinking heavily. A pro-Kremlin TV personality blamed the US, saying Washington likely poisoned him to soil Russia’s international reputation.

Dmitry Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, said that the findings of the German doctors could hit relations between Moscow and the West, but that without clear evidence of who was behind the poisoning it would be hard for Western governments to take action.

“There will be accusations, angry words,” he said. “But there is a long way to go before you establish who poisoned him.”

For years, Mr Navalny made his name airing exposes of corruption allegations against the Kremlin elite on his popular YouTube channel, where he had garnered nearly four million followers.

Mr Navalny arrived in Berlin on Saturday after being evacuated from the Siberian city of Omsk, having collapsed during a trip in Russia last week.

Supporters and family members arranged a medevac flight to bring Mr Navalny to Berlin for treatment. Russian doctors in Omsk said there were no traces of poison found in Mr Navalny’s tests there and initially refused to grant permission to move him to Berlin, saying he wasn’t stable enough for travel, before backtracking.

Mr Navalny arrived in Berlin early on Saturday morning and was transferred under police protection­ to the Charite hospital. Armed officers from the BKA, Germany’s equivalent to the ­Federal Bureau of Investigation, stood guard at the hospital.

The US and European governments have so far been cautious in repeating the poisoning accusations levelled by Mr Navalny’s supporters or pointing the finger at the Kremlin.

After a weekend of tests at the Charite hospital, the doctors there said that “the clinical results show a toxic poisoning from a substance that belongs to the group of cholin­esterase inhibitors,” a substance found in nerve agents and pesticides. Mr Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said she suspect­ed the Russian doctors were keeping her husband from travelling on Friday in order for all traces of ­poison to leave his body.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the decision of doctors in Siberia to hold Mr Navalny­ until Saturday was purely medical.

The Wall Street Journal