THE HAGUE: The global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW said on Tuesday that samples taken from Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who claims he was poisoned by the Kremlin, contained a Novichok-type nerve agent.
The findings by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirm similar results by a military laboratory in Germany, where Navalny was treated in hospital, and labs in France and Sweden. OPCW chief Fernando Arias “considered that these results constitute a matter of grave concern,” the Hague-based watchdog said in a statement.
They came as Navalny said in an interview that he hoped to return to Russia within months, while showing his trembling hands as evidence of the nerve damage he suffered.
The OPCW said that the blood and urine samples taken from Navalny in Germany by the watchdog’s own experts contained signs of a “cholinesterase inhibitor” — a type of nerve agent.
The traces “have similar structural characteristics as the toxic chemicals” found in two Novichok chemicals that were banned by the Hague-based body in 2019, it said.
The specific type of Novichok found in the Navalny samples was however not itself one of those placed on the banned list last year, the OPCW added.
Western powers have demanded answers from Russia over the poisoning, while Navalny himself has blamed the Kremlin. Russia has denied all involvement.
Navalny was medically evacuated to Germany in late August after falling ill on a plane and spending several days in a Siberian hospital. He is still recovering in Berlin.
“I rule out the option” of not returning to Russia, Navalny, who has been visited in hospital by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told a popular Russian YouTube blogger, Yury Dud. Looking thin but smiling and lively, the 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner said it could be “three weeks or two months” that he remains in German, although “definitely not a year.”
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