Russia has nothing to hide in Navalny case: Lavrov

MOSCOW

Russia has nothing to hide in the case of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny poisoning, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

As soon as Navalny fell unwell on board of a plane, the crew requested an urgent landing, an emergency team was waiting in the airport and within minutes delivered Navalny to a hospital, where he was given medical care, Lavrov said at a press conference following a virtual meeting of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) foreign ministers.

Since Navalny's shifting to Germany, there have been many allegations against Russia, while official requests from the authorities remain unanswered, he added.

According to Lavrov, the German Foreign Ministry hinders providing Russia with the necessary information.

"I am forced to say out loud that, according to our information, this response is delayed due to the position of the German Foreign Ministry," he said.

Earlier, the Russian General Attorney's Office said it needs documents confirming the presence of toxins in Navalny's tests to open a criminal investigation.

On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seiber said Berlin will notify the EU and NATO as well as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of finding "a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok party" in Navalny's tests to work out a united position.

According to the UK government, the same nerve agent Novichok was also used in a 2018 attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury.

Russia neither develops nor produces chemical weapons anymore as the last chemical round was destroyed in 2017, which was verified and certified by the OPCW.

Currently, Novichok is known to be produced in the US and Georgia, said Yury Shvytkin, a member of the Russian lower chamber of the parliament -- the State Duma.

Navalny, 44, a vociferous critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, felt sick on Aug. 20 on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk and Navalny was rushed to a hospital, where he spent two days before being sent to Berlin for treatment.

Currently he is in intensive care in a medically induced coma. His condition is serious, but there is no acute danger to his life, according to his doctors.