Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny calls out Trump for not condemning chemical attack that almost killed him
Outspoken Vladimir Putin critic, Alexey Navalny has called out United States President Donald Trump over his silence regarding a recent alleged state sponsored chemical attack against his life.
Navalny, a fierce critic of the Kremlin, became gravely ill on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow on August 20. He almost lost his life until the German government asked that he be flown to Germany where he was treated at the Charite Hospital in Berlin and was discharged in late September.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has confirmed that blood and urine samples taken from Navalny showed the presence of Novichok, a Soviet-era group of nerve agents. Novichok was also used in a March 2018 attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the English cathedral city of Salisbury.
The UK, EU, Germany, France all condemned Russia for the alleged attack and warned of a possible retaliation against Russia, but Trump has been silent regarding the attack.
Speaking to CBS on Sunday October 18, Navalny said “I think it’s extremely important — that everyone, of course, including and maybe in the first of all, President of United States, to be very strong against using chemical weapons in the 21st Century.”
“I said to the flight attendant, and I kind of shocked him with my statement: ‘Well, I was poisoned and I’m gonna die.’ And I immediately lay down on — onto his feet,” Navalny said of the moment he realized he’d been poisoned.
Investigators found Novichok on a poisoned bottle from the hotel where Navalny was staying in Siberia.
Navalny added; “I think that when I was — maybe put some clothes with these — with this poison on me, I touch it with the hand, and then I sip from the bottle. So this nerve agent was not inside of a bottle but on the bottle.”
Navalny went on to say that Moscow denies carrying out the attack because to acknowledge means Russia admitting it still possessed banned weapons.
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin is using these weapons to “kill me and, you know terrify others,” claiming that Putin is “enjoying” the fact people can drop dead and there is no gun, or no trace of what happened.
“The chemical is maybe the most toxic agent invented by the humans. It’s a new type of Novichok, which proves that, unfortunately that Putin is developing new program of this chemical weapon, which is forbidden.”
“It’s not something you can buy in the store even if you have billions of dollars,” he said, adding that specialist knowledge is also required to use the poison.
He added that if Putin was not responsible for the attack, “why is there no investigation?”
