Russia Refuses to Investigate Navalny ‘Illness,’ Hopes Relations with West Won’t Suffer

The Russian government continued to signal its disinterest on Wednesday in investigating the “illness” of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader widely suspected of being poisoned while aboard an aircraft last week.

Navalny is currently receiving medical treatment in Germany, where doctors and government officials are among those who believe he was poisoned.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday his government “would not like” relations with the West to deteriorate over the Navalny case, and said there is “no reason” for international relations to suffer.

The odds are growing that Navalny’s plight will have international repercussions. Bloomberg News noted on Tuesday that more European leaders are calling for a full and transparent investigation, the German government is growing visibly exasperated with the Kremlin’s attitude, and the Trump administration has joined the chorus of concern:

Deeply concerned by reports that Russian opposition activist Aleksy Navalny was poisoned. If these reports are proven accurate, we support the EU's call for a comprehensive investigation. The U.S. stands ready to assist.

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) August 25, 2020

According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin “stressed the inadmissibility of hasty and unfounded accusations” about Navalny in a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday afternoon. On Monday, the Kremlin accused German doctors of “rushing” to declare Navalny has toxins in his system.

“This is a Russian citizen who is in a coma and we want to find out what was the reason for this coma,” Peskov said.

“We are definitely interested, no less than others, in understanding what led to the coma of the patient who is undergoing treatment in a Berlin hospital,” he insisted. “[As for] various hasty wordings that are so abundantly used that this was poisoning with a high degree of probability, we are patient, but we strongly disagree with that at this stage.”

Peskov also made a discouraging reference to Russian parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin’s orders on Tuesday to begin investigating a conspiracy theory that Navalny was actually poisoned by “foreign states” in a false flag operation.

“The State Duma security committee will be instructed to analyze what happened in order to understand whether this was an attempt on the part of foreign states to harm the health of a Russian citizen to fuel tensions inside Russia, as well as to formulate fresh accusations against our country,” Volodin said.

Peskov on Wednesday agreed there is “reason to consider whom it benefits” if poison was found in Navalny’s system, clearly implying the Russian government could not possibly benefit from such an obvious effort to kill a leading critic. 

Navalny himself has suggested Putin would be foolish to murder him because it would “turn him into a hero,” but Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny’s FBK anti-corruption investigative foundation, asserted on Wednesday that only Putin could have authorized an assassination attempt.

“He hates what the FBK does too much, exposing him and his entourage,” Zhdanov asserted.

Also less than fond of Navalny and his work is billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as “Putin’s chef” because of the catering services his company provides to the Kremlin. Prigozhin restated his determination on Tuesday to bankrupt Navalny and his foundation.

“I intend to strip this group of unscrupulous people of their clothes and shoes,” Prigozhin said. 

“If comrade Navalny kicks the bucket, I personally don’t intend to persecute him in this world. I’ll put this off for an indefinite time and then I’ll compensate myself to my pleasure,” he said of the million-dollar defamation settlement Navalny and the FBK have been ordered to pay.

The settlement was imposed on Navalny for making supposedly slanderous accusations against a company that caters to Russian schools. Prigozhin has denied he secretly owns the company, but on Tuesday he ostentatiously paid the company off so that all the penalties paid by Navalny and the FBK will come to him personally.