The Environment and Natural Reserves Authority urged the public to verify information from official sources
uae2 hours ago
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who the West says was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, is regaining mobility and able to leave his bed, the Berlin hospital treating him said Monday.
The improvement in his condition came as two European laboratories corroborated the findings that the Soviet-era military grade agent was used on the Kremlin critic, prompting French President Emmanuel Macron to demand Vladimir Putin shed light on the "attempted murder".
Hitting back at doubts raised by Russia about the German investigation, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Berlin had asked France and Sweden "for an independent review of the German evidence on the basis of new samples from Mr Navalny".
"The results of this review at specialised laboratories in France and Sweden are now available and confirm the German evidence" of the use of the banned weapons-grade substance, Seibert said in a statement.
The results prompted Macron to tell the Russian president in telephone talks that it was "imperative that all light be shed, without delay, on the circumstances of this attempted murder and who is responsible", the French presidency said in a statement.
Putin fired back that the claims remained "unsubstantiated accusations based on nothing against the Russian side".
In an interview with the RTVI television network on Monday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of going "beyond all the limits of decency and reasonableness".
"Our Western partners look at us arrogantly, but we too have the right to doubt their claims of professionalism," he said.
Although Germany was still waiting for the outcome of a separate evaluation by the OPCW global chemical weapons watchdog, Seibert said it was renewing the call for Russia to make a "declaration on the events".
"We are in close contact with our European partners about further steps," he added.
Asa Scott, head of division for CBRN defence and security at Sweden's Defence Research Agency, confirmed to AFP its lab in Umea in the north of the country had found Novichok in the sample and presumed it came from Russia.
"I find it unlikely that any other nation that is party to the Chemical Weapons Convention would have it," Scott said.
As the pressure on Moscow built, the German hospital treating Navalny said his condition continued to improve.
"The patient has been successfully removed from mechanical ventilation," Berlin's Charite hospital said. "He is currently undergoing mobilisation and is able to leave his bed for short periods of time."
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