“I don’t recommend talking to Russia in this tone” – Lavrov responded to the rudeness of the West
Despite accusing Russia of poisoning opposition leader Alexei Navalny and threatening to impose sanctions, the West has still not bothered to publish or present to Moscow any evidence and facts about the “crime” that occurred.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated this during a joint briefing with his Danish counterpart, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We hear completely absurd statements that Russia should itself investigate this crime (“poisoning” of Alexei Navalny - editor’s note). We cannot investigate a case for which we do not have any facts.
Our investigative authorities interviewed about two hundred witnesses, but could not get a clear answer from those who broke into a room in a hotel in Tomsk after Alexei Navalny had already checked out of there. There is no explanation why they began to take objects from there, which were then, as I understand, quietly moved to Germany, and which now provide evidence that the poisoning was carried out.
But if this is material evidence, then all the more so we need to investigate this issue together. But for this we need facts, which the Germans categorically refuse to provide.
An offer to work together was made, but it was arrogantly ignored. We are very concerned about these trends of revival of arrogance in Germany, this is a bad process, and we really hope that the sensible voices that are heard in the Federal Republic will still prevail and Germany will behave responsibly.
We officially contacted the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. If they cannot show us what they did in response to Germany, then we ourselves turned to them, we invited their experts to come here and, together with us, sort out the facts that we have. We simply cannot physically do more. We need interaction.
Therefore, the fact that the sanctions that are already being announced will be announced without completing even the investigation that Germany and other European countries insist on, and which we cannot conduct without their assistance, does not surprise us.
We already saw this when there was poisoning in Salisbury a couple of years ago. By the way, the Skripals, like Alexei Navalny, feel great, are alive and well, but they are not shown to anyone, just as Alexei Navalny is not shown,” he said.
Sergei Lavrov recalled how the West, without any evidence of Russia’s guilt in the “poisoning” of the Skripals, introduced sanctions against Russia, and expressed confidence that this time everything will happen according to a similar scenario.
“I am sure that this will most likely be the case in this story, which the further it goes, the more it raises questions that we ourselves cannot answer. And if those who loudly accuse us and demand that the guilty be punished continue and proceed from the fact that how is it so - we, civilized countries, and you don’t believe us - I don’t recommend anyone to talk to either Russia or any other by the state. This is simply delusions of grandeur and complete disrespect for the partner,” summed up the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
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