Berlin slams new Russian sanctions over Navalny

Описание: (13 Nov 2020) The German government on Friday criticized an announcement by Russia's foreign minister that Moscow is imposing sanctions against German and French officials in response to EU measures taken over the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Navalny, a corruption investigator and longtime foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is in Germany recovering from what German authorities, pointing to findings by several specialist labs, say was poisoning in Russia with a nerve agent.
Last month, EU foreign ministers imposed sanctions on six Russian officials and a state research institute over the incident.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that retaliatory sanctions against "senior staff of the offices of the leaders of Germany and France" have already been approved. He didn't name them.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that the use of a military nerve agent is "a serious violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and so of international law."
Seibert told reporters in Berlin that "Russia has everything necessary to clear up this crime, and instead the Russian foreign minister announces that it is imposing sanctions against officials of other states."
He called the move "unjustified and inappropriate from the German government's point of view," adding it takes a "Russian problem into bilateral relations with Germany and France."
Navalny fell ill on August 20 during a domestic flight in Russia and was flown to Germany for treatment two days later. His allies accused the Kremlin of poisoning its fiercest opponent.
The Kremlin denied involvement and says that before Navalny's transfer to Berlin, Russian labs found no sign of poisoning.
Moscow has called for Germany and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to provide evidence, and bristled at Western leaders' insistence that Russia answers questions about what happened to him.
Lavrov charged that Navalny may have been poisoned in Germany or on a plane that transported him from Russia to Berlin

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