UN Security Council Receives Russia’s Questions Regarding Skripal Case From London

United Nations, March 25 – Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the organization, said at an informal meeting of the UN Security Council that Russia would publish in the UN the questions it asked the British authorities in the course of the investigation of the situation with the Skripals poisoning. .

On Friday, at Russia’s initiative, an informal meeting of the UN Security Council was held on the topic “Risks arising from the politicization of the activities of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)”.

“Today, of course, the accident in Salisbury and the accident with Alexei Navalny did not go without mentioning. We consider it very important to use absolutely the same tactics in relation to the mentioned incidents in connection with the Syrian chemical dossier,” Nebenzia said. He said.

He pointed out that Russia was the first to be interested in cooperating with the British side to clarify all the circumstances of what happened in Salisbury. However, according to him, instead of conducting an objective investigation, London preferred to immediately bring charges against the Russian Federation. “Furthermore, in fact, acknowledging the absence of any evidence — we all remember the phrase ‘extremely likely’, which, by the way, is ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ used by the OPCW Technical Secretariat in connection with the incident in (Syria) Dumas,” Nebenzia said. differ slightly.” According to him, the UK has not responded in substance to the many questions raised by the Russian side regarding the incident.

The permanent representative said: “We recently distributed a detailed report entitled“ Salisbury: Five years without answers to questions ”as an official document of the UN Security Council and General Assembly, prepared by the Russian Embassy in the UK.

According to Nebenzia, this is an 80-page document. “We will extract from this report and publish the questions that we asked the British side, to which we did not receive an answer. I think you will be interested to read it. We will do the same in connection with the incident with Alexei Navalny.

Former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, convicted in Russia of treason, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury in March 2018, sparking an international scandal. Scotland Yard later confirmed that the man and the other woman were poisoned with the same substance as Skripal. Poisoned Don Sturgess, 44, died on July 8 at Salisbury District Hospital. London believes that the Russian state was involved in the Skripal poisoning with A234, and that Sturges was an accidental victim. Moscow categorically denies this.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the “Skripal case” is collapsing before our eyes because there is no evidence of Russia’s guilt. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent dozens of diplomatic notes to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanding that Russia be granted access to the investigation, the affected citizens of the Russian Federation, as well as requesting legal assistance and proposals for cooperation, including a joint investigation.

On August 20, 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in Omsk after he fell ill on the plane en route from Tomsk. According to the results of the examinations, Omsk doctors called the main diagnosis a metabolic disorder that caused a sharp change in blood sugar. The reason for this is still not clear, but according to Omsk doctors, no toxins were found in Navalny’s blood and urine.

He was later flown to Germany. Subsequently, the German government, citing military doctors, stated that Navalny had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok group of war toxic agents. Later, the German Cabinet announced that the conclusions of German experts were confirmed by the laboratories of Sweden and France, in parallel with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, at the request of Berlin, conducts its own research. In this regard, the Kremlin stated that Berlin did not inform Moscow of its findings, and the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Russia is waiting for a response from Germany to an official request regarding this situation: Within a month, Russia sent Germany three requests for legal assistance regarding the situation with Navalny, which were not received. answers to them. Until the day Navalny was hospitalized, the prosecutor’s office and the police began to carry out their checks.

And the Russian Foreign Ministry said, a year after the Navalny incident, that it was a planned provocation aimed at discrediting Russia, and the West promoted the case to contain the country and new attacks on it. The ministry noted that Berlin had not presented any verifiable evidence of its accusations against the Russian Federation, and that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had “concluded” Moscow’s request for assistance, precluding a case being brought.

The West blamed Damascus for the chemical attack on the Syrian city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta, which allegedly took place on April 7, 2018. As evidence of the chemical attack, the White Helmets used footage showing “wounded” residents of Douma, including children. Later, people who appeared in the video reported that they had not seen any attack. Someone said that unknown people started a panic in the city, after which they tried to collect people in the hospital. There water was poured on them without any explanation and then they were released. The doctors working at the hospital at the time confirmed that there were no signs of chemical poisoning in the patients.