EMBASSY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN IRELAND   184-186 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 14 Tel: (+353-1) 492-20-48, Fax: (+353-1) 492-35-25

 

 

THE REALITY CHECK ON THE ‘NAVALNY CASE’

We have witnessed a massive and universally critical coverage in the Western media of the events associated with the return to Russia of A.Navalny and legal procedures against him. In a nutshell, message is straightforward – not only “the Putin regime” did “poison” A.Navalny, but subjected him to “illegal trial” upon return to Russia.

Neither assertion is true. Let us take the “poisoning” story first. In August 2020 A.Navalny fell ill on board the aircraft on route from Tomsk to Moscow, was urgently brought to Omsk, where the staff of the city hospital essentially saved his life. There have been multiple blood and other biological tests, none of which showed any presence of a “combat toxic substances” in A.Navalny’s system. When in two days A.Navalny’s condition stabilized, he was cleared to be transported to Germany for further treatment – upon request from his wife as well as the German Government. For that purpose prohibition on travel abroad, which is condition of A.Navalny probation sentence in two criminal indictments, was lifted, and he was brought to the “Charité” clinic in Berlin. Initially, German doctors, like their colleagues in Omsk, found nothing in A.Navalny’s tests to suggest poisoning. All of a sudden, just a few days later, that was allegedly found by the German military laboratory (which, by the way, in their own words, did not have any formulas of “Novichok”-related substance). On that dubious basis the German as well as a number of other Western governments immediately declared that what happened to A.Navalny in August 2020 was “poisoning by Novichok” and called on the Russian Government to investigate. Naturally, we asked that the evidence be presented, so it could be compared to the biological material in Omsk and, if there is indeed a sign of poisoning, the criminal investigation could be opened. There have been multiple requests from the Russian law enforcement agencies to the German colleagues, but there have been no substantive answers, only formal response – the whole thing is classified, A.Navalny is not giving consent to the handover of the evidence to Russia and that’s it. Basically, in the end we have an accusation and no proof – no blood, or urine samples, no toxicology report, no medical reports – nothing. There is no way to describe this whole story other than a hazing exercise aimed at Russia and a mockery of a due legal process.

The decision by Simonovsky court in Moscow on February 2, 2021 to put A.Navalny in jail for 2 years and 8 months (subject to an appeal) is commonly portrayed as sort of an act of political repression and wrongful conviction of an innocent person. Not the case. The Court did not convict A.Navalny. It only changed the terms of serving his earlier sentence from probation to real jail time due to numerous violations of suspended sentence by the convict. The submission to the Court by the Federal Penal Service of Russia (FPS) cited more than 50 violations by A.Navalny, mostly before the “poisoning” story and his stay in Germany. A.Navalny continued to ignore the FPS summons after he was released from the “Charité” clinic at the end of September 2020, continued to stay in Germany, leading very public life, giving interviews, etc. Not surprisingly, the FPS publicly warned A.Navalny that he would be subject to the Court action, once he is back to Russia. By the way, the excessive leniency of the FPS towards A.Navalny (normally a convict gets real jail time after 1 or 2 violations of the suspended sentence) obliged the Court on the same February 2, 2021 to issue “obiter dictum”, sanctioning the FPS for inadequate control over A.Navalny probation.

There is also a point often made by the A.Navalny supporters that his sentence for the embezzlement in the “Yves Rocher” case was illegal in the first place and that was allegedly confirmed by the European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) in 2017. Not true. The ECHR in its ruling did not find A.Navalny innocent, did not oblige the Russian authorities to annul his criminal sentence and did not recognize the sentence as politically motivated. Neither the ECHR demanded that the case should be re-investigated.

All that is and has been abundantly clear to all Western governments, which maintained highly vocal campaign of pressure on Moscow, demanding that A.Navalny be set free and his “poisoning” be investigated.  That, in itself, strictly in legal terms constitutes an interference in the internal affairs of Russia. If one looks at the facts, it is clear that this is not only interference, but an elaborate “smoke and mirrors” propaganda and disinformation exercise, designed to influence political situation in Russia. That is why A.Navalny is presented as the “main political opponent” to President V.Putin and the “victim” of politically motivated harassment. That has been portrayed as the reason for the recent illegal manifestations in the Russian cities, which basically amount to nothing more than “quasi-political hooliganism”, designed to provide photo-op for the Western media to support claims of “police brutality”. To say that the scope of these illegal actions is hugely overblown is an understatement. In reality we are talking about a total of a few thousand people in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and several other cities – a group of hate-mongers and professional provocateurs with no coherent political agenda. There is no argument that not everyone in Russia (like in many other countries) is happy with social and economic conditions they live in, there is sometimes justifiable discontent with inefficient authorities, with cases of corruption, with other things. But A.Navalny and his “project” have nothing to do with that. People simply want to do things in a better way and there is  normal, civilized way to get that message across, provided by the Constitution and laws of Russia.

Dublin, February 2021