Pressure builds on West to punish Russia over Navalny poisoning

Calls were mounting on Thursday for tough Western action against Russia over the suspected poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the prominent Kremlin critic.

Senior German politicians compared Vladimir Putin to Bashar Assad of Syria and demanded Europe go further than it did in response to the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury two years ago.

But the Kremlin refused to back down and senior figures close to Mr Putin sought to claim Mr Navalny may have been poisoned by Germany as a “deliberate provocation”.

Talks are underway to agree a common Western response after it emerged Mr Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok, and there are clear signs attitudes are hardening in European capitals.

“We are committed to working with Germany, our allies and international partners to demonstrate that there are severe consequences for the use of banned chemical weapons,” a Number 10 spokesman said ahead of a meeting between Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, and his German counterpart Heiko Maas.

“The Putin regime is on the same level as those who have used chemical weapons against their own civilian population in Syria,” Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the German defence minister, said in the most outspoken attack on the Kremlin yet by a member of Mrs Merkel’s government.

“I expect the European Union to take a common stand to make Russia fully investigate the crime and to hold the perpetrators accountable.”

“Once again we are brutally confronted with the reality of the Putin regime, and the way it treats people with contempt,” said Norbert Röttgen, one of the contenders to succeed Mrs Merkel as chancellor next year.

“The question is, are the Europeans always going to end up doing nothing? If we do, we will become irrelevant and we won't be taken seriously.”

“The EU response must go further than it did to the Skripal attack,” Jürgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democrat party (CDU), said.

“The Kremlin isn't even bothering to try to dispel suspicions. It’s part of the Russian system of repression to let the opposition know what can happen to them.”

Mr Navalny is currently in a coma in a Berlin hospital, after Russia bowed to international pressure and allowed him to be moved to Germany for treatment.

The discovery of traces of Novichok in his body by a German military laboratory has made the Kremlin the prime suspect in the poisoning.

The nerve agent was developed by the Soviet Union and is thought to be so sophisticated it could only be produced by a state.

It was used in the 2018 attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter and Britain is understood to have offered Germany assistance and the “extensive expertise” acquired from its own experience of the nerve agent.

But Mrs Merkel’s attempts to build a united Western front over the poisoning have been weakened by domestic pressure. The opposition Green Party and Free Democrats (FDP) have called for an emergency meeting of the German parliamentary intelligence committee to find out how much her government knows about the case.

And she is facing questions over her continued backing for a controversial gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. German opposition parties and senior figures from her own Christian Democrats have demanded the Nord Stream 2 project be cancelled in response to the poisoning.

In the US, Democrats accused the Trump White House of failing to take a stand against Russia.“Donald Trump has refused to confront Putin,” Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, said. “He has yet to condemn the attack on Mr. Navalny. His silence is complicity. Americans are less safe with Donald Trump in the White House.”

A spokesman for the National Security Council pledged the US would “work with allies and the international community to hold those in Russia accountable”, but there was no statement from Mr Trump or a senior minister.

In Russia, Mr Putin has yet to comment on the allegations. But one of his close allies claimed the poisoning was a “provocation” organised in Germany.

“This is a planned action in order to introduce new sanctions and try to restrain the development of our country,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Russian parliament said.

“The EU and Nato obviously do not like the fact that the Russian economy is strengthening every year...They do not want our country to be strong,”

“Before the patient was brought to Berlin, a battery of tests were carried out in our country in accordance with all international standards, and no toxic substances were found,” Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman claimed.

The Kremlin said Mr Putin has no plans to speak to Mrs Merkel about the case or make any statement about it.