Novichok-tinged bottle found in Navalny’s room: colleagues

Colleagues of Russian opposition leer Alexei Navalny said Thursday that a bottle of water with a trace of vichok nerve nt was found in his hotel room after his poisoning.

Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow on Aug. 20 and was flown to Germany, where he was kept in an induced coma for more than two weeks as he was treated with an antidote. On Tuesday, he posted a picture of himself from his hospital bed in Berlin, hugged by his wife and children.

A video posted on Navalny’s Instagram on Thursday showed his team working around his hotel room in Tomsk before he left city and collapsed on a flight back to Moscow.

Navalny’s Instagram said y returned to room an hour after learning that he h become ill and packed bottles and or items for furr inspection.

“Two weeks later, a German laboratory found a trace of vichok on a bottle from Tomsk hotel room,” y said. “And n ar three labs that took Alexei’s samples proved that he was poisoned with it. w we understand: It was done before he left his room to go to airport.”

A German military lab has determined that Navalny was poisoned with vichok, same class of Soviet-era nt that Britain said was used on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, in 2018. On Monday, German government said independent tests by labs in France and Sweden backed up its findings.

Hague-based Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is also taking steps to have samples from Navalny tested at its designated labs, Germany has said.

Kremlin has bristled at calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and or leers to answer questions about poisoning, denying any official involvement.