Russia asks Germany for poison evidence

Russia has bristled at calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders to answer questions about the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, denying any official involvement.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he had expressed “deep concern over the criminal act” that targeted Navalny directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. The Kremlin said Putin in the call “underlined the impropriety of unfounded accusations against the Russian side” and emphasized Russia’s demand for Germany to hand over analyses and samples.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday that Russia is puzzled by the German refusal to share Navalny’s analyses and other medical data, or compare notes with the Russian doctors who found no trace of poison in his system while he was at a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk.

“Russia has been absolutely open for cooperation in determining what happened,” Peskov said. “Russia needs cooperation with the German side in getting the patient’s biological samples to be able to advance.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who has canceled a scheduled trip Tuesday to Berlin, said Russian authorities have conducted a preliminary inquiry and documented the meetings Navalny had before falling ill, but he emphasized they need to see the evidence of his poisoning to launch a full criminal investigation.

Lavrov charged that Navalny’s life was saved by the pilots of the plane who quickly landed in the Siberian city of Omsk when he collapsed on board and by the rapid action of doctors there. He accused the West of trying to smear Russia and use the incident as a pretext for new sanctions against Moscow.

Berlin has rejected suggestions from Moscow that it is dragging its heels on sharing evidence.

With Germany’s findings corroborated by labs abroad, “we do not expect the bringer of the bad news — namely us — to be attacked further, but rather that they should deal with the news itself,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Monday of Russian authorities.

Asked why no samples from Navalny have been given to Russia, his spokeswoman noted that “Mr. Navalny was in Russian treatment in a hospital for 48 hours.”

Most of Germany’s political parties have joined Merkel in calling for an investigation, but leaders in the far-right Alternative for Germany, known for its pro-Russian sympathies, have said Berlin should not be involved. On Tuesday it invited media to a discussion with a Russian parliamentarian on “the Russian view of the Navalny case.”