DISINFO: EU imposed Navalny-related sanctions on Russia despite lack of proof
SUMMARY
[German FM Heiko Maas] talks about the rule of law. But there can be no talk of rule of law in Navalny’s case, because the [EU] sanctions were imposed with no trial, no investigation, not so much as even a chat with the OPCW. Nonetheless, the guilty party was promptly appointed.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative surrounding the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. By the time the EU sanctions were imposed, the fact of Navalny's poisoning with a Novichok-type agent had been established during the activist's stay at the Charite hospital. These findings were later independently corroborated by labs in France and Sweden, and finally confirmed by the OPCW, which stated that [t]he biomarkers of the cholinesterase inhibitor found in Mr Navalny’s blood and urine samples have similar structural characteristics to the toxic chemicals belonging to schedules 1.A.14 and 1.A.15." Moscow and its media proxies have used oddly similar techniques to obscure Russia's role in the 2018 Skripal poisoning on the one hand, and in the 2020 Navalny poisoning on the other. See here for an overview of parallel narratives which pro-Kremlin media have employed in both incidents.