Meeting of the Commission on the Investigation of Foreign Interference in Russia’s Internal Affairs was held on Wednesday, September 23. The meeting participants discussed the incident with blogger Alexey Navalny.
The Chairman of the Commission Vasilii Piskarev
Vasily Ivanovich
emphasized that the information on the involvement
of Western countries in escalating the situation ”found its
confirmation.“ ”It has been revealed that the massive disinformation
campaign launched by the Western states on the alleged poisoning by Russian authorities
of Alexey Navalny was premeditated,“ the parliamentarian said and added
that this campaign had several goals, including weakening Russia's economic
development by new restriction measures and undermining Russia-Belarus
cooperation and severing ties with other friendly countries.
“The Commission has evidence that traces of toxic or any kind of chemical agents had not been found by medical staff in Omsk, and before his departure from the territory of Russia. Highly qualified independent Russian laboratories, using the most modern equipment, had several tests, and the fact of poisoning of Alexey Navalny with toxic substances was ruled out,” said Vasilii Piskarev.
The Chairman of the Commission is convinced that illegal actions against the blogger took place on the territory of Germany, as ”the German authorities, who loudly announced the fact of poisoning, using far-fetched pretexts, in every possible way avoid providing answers to requests of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation.“ “Many requests for providing legal assistance had been sent from Moscow, but there is still no response from Germany. That means that Germany does not intend to consider this version. Why? What are they hiding? And this does not allow our law enforcement agencies to use all the necessary mechanisms to ascertain the exact circumstances of the incident,” added Vasilii Piskarev.
In this regard, the Commission proposed to initiate an investigation of the incident with Alexey Navalny together with German parliamentarians. According to Vasilii Piskarev, a joint parliamentary commission or working group could be created for that. “It is important for us that the performed activities should be transparent, publicly and, most importantly, fair,” he said.
“The State Duma Commission decided to appeal to our colleagues in the Bundestag within the framework of parliamentary control to propose the German authorities to conduct an independent investigation together with Russia, thus, we demonstrate maximum transparency in this matter and are very interested in the truth,” stressed the Chairman of the Commission.
“It is very important for parliamentarians to maintain friendly cooperation with Germany, which, unfortunately, are now being disrupted and we have done nothing for that,” said Vasilii Piskarev.
Legislative activities
Following the meeting of the Commission, Vasilii Piskarev said that the deputies continue their legislative on effective counteraction of foreign interference. In particular, the draft law on introducing administrative responsibility for Russian citizens for participating in events held in foreign states by NGOs, recognized in Russia as undesirable, is almost ready, and may be submitted to the State Duma in the near future.
The package of bills approved by the Commission also includes an initiative to regulate the procedure of access to work in election commissions for persons who have been charged for participating in the activities of organizations recognized as undesirable in Russia.
Vasilii Piskarev added that ”there was a proposal to ban foreign and international NGOs to provide intermediary services by transferring to our NGOs funds or property belonging organizations recognized as undesirable in Russia. Violation of this procedure will be the basis for including these organizations in the list of undesirable organizations on the territory of our country.“
