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Russia accuses Germany of refusing to cooperate on Navalny medical probe

Russia on Friday accused Germany of refusing to cooperate with it to establish the cause of of opposition leader Alexei Navalny's illness as he continues to recover in Berlin.

Russia accuses Germany of refusing to cooperate on Navalny medical probe
A poster showing Navalny (L) with the headline "poisoned" next to an effigy of President Putin, during an anti-government protest at the Russian Embassy in Berlin. Photo: AFP

The 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner collapsed on a flight to Moscow from Siberia in what his allies say was a state-sanctioned poison attack.

He was discharged from a hospital in Berlin this week after receiving treatment for a month.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that doctors in Siberia had passed information to their colleagues in Berlin and that Russia was ready to collaborate for the sake of Navalny's “speedy recovery”.

“Unfortunately, in response we received a categorical refusal from the German government to cooperate in establishing the truth about the situation with Alexei Navalny,” the statement said.

Labs in Germany, France and Sweden have said they confirmed the staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin was poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet military-grade nerve agent.

The Kremlin has denied the allegations and accused Western leaders of launching a disinformation campaign over the opposition leader's illness.

The foreign ministry called Germany's conclusion that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok “predictable” and said it was reached “in the atmosphere of ongoing anti-Russian hysteria in the West”.

Russia insists medical tests its doctors carried out found no poison in Navalny's body. It says it lacks grounds for a criminal investigation, despite international calls for a transparent probe.

Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said Friday that his recovery would “take a long time” and that he would undergo rehabilitation in Germany.

In a blog post on earlier on Friday, Navalny thanked Russian pilots who made an emergency landing when he fell ill and the paramedics who first treated him.

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RUSSIA

Russia announces no New Year’s greetings for France, US, Germany

US President Joe Biden, France's Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will not be receiving New Year's greetings from Russian leader Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Friday.

Russia announces no New Year's greetings for France, US, Germany

As the world gears up to ring in the New Year this weekend, Putin sent congratulatory messages to the leaders of Kremlin-friendly countries including Turkey, Syria, Venezuela and China.

But Putin will not wish a happy New Year to the leaders of the United States, France and Germany, countries that have piled unprecedented sanctions on Moscow over Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

“We currently have no contact with them,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“And the president will not congratulate them given the unfriendly actions that they are taking on a continuous basis,” he added.

Putin shocked the world by sending troops to pro-Western Ukraine on February 24.

While Kyiv’s Western allies refused to send troops to Ukraine, they have been supplying the ex-Soviet country with weapons in a show of support that has seen Moscow suffer humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.

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