Navalny
Poisoning
Germany Debates Halting Contentious Russian
Pipeline Project
Leading politicians in Germany from all mainstream
parties are demanding that construction on the natural gas pipeline Nord Stream
2 be suspended as a result of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. But Merkel's
government is so far resisting such calls.
By Alexander
Chernyshev, Matthias Gebauer, Christina Hebel, Valerie Höhne, Peter Müller,
Marcel Rosenbach, Christoph Schult und Fidelius Schmid
04.09.2020,
20.34 Uhr
Officially,
it was an invitation for a midday coffee on Wednesday, when Chancellor Angela
Merkel gathered her six most important ministers in the Chancellery. A formal
meeting of the Security Cabinet would have attracted too much attention.
The
discussion focused on the fate of Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition
politician who was poisoned in Russia and who is now receiving treatment at
Charité University Hospital in Berlin. Specifically, the results of an analysis
performed by the Bundeswehr Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology in Munich
had arrived and a chief staff surgeon from the German military was on hand to
explain them to the gathered ministers. Those results were a political
bombshell.
According
to meeting participants, the military doctor said there was no doubt that the
poison used on Navalny belonged to the Novichok family of nerve agents. Traces
of the agent were found in blood, urine and skin samples taken from Navalny as
well as on a bottle that he had with him on his trip. Members of his family had
kept the bottle after the politician collapsed on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow
and turned it over to doctors in Berlin. It is thought that Navalny drank from
the bottle after he had been poisoned, accounting for the traces found on the
receptacle.
A
Chancellery official says that the information shared by the military doctor
"was a real shock." Since then, it has been clear that Germany's
relationship with Russia will change significantly. The clear evidence that the
internationally banned nerve agent was used makes it even more likely that the
Kremlin was behind the poisoning. And Russian President Vladimir Putin.
That same evening,
Merkel chose unusually harsh words in her public address. "We expect the
Russian government to make a statement on this incident," she said.
"There are now very serious questions that only the Russian government can
and must answer."
The ball is
now in Russia's court. In Berlin, meanwhile, a debate has erupted over which
sanctions the German government should now consider applying. The expulsion of
Russian diplomats and sanctions against the individuals responsible for the
annexation of Crimea did little to impress Moscow. Economic sanctions against
certain industries or products could be effective, but they would likely hurt
Germany as well, given that Moscow's retaliations against such sanctions in the
past have been just as severe.
"A
Mistake from the Very Beginning"
The only
penalty that would primarily hurt Moscow would be a construction stop on the
almost completed Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. "The German
government's starry-eyed indifference to President Putin's brutality must
finally come to an end," says Agnieszka Brugger, deputy group leader for
the Green Party in parliament. "Putting an end to Nord Stream 2 would be
the minimum."
The
business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) tend to agree. The pipeline "must
immediately be examined," says Bijan Dijr-Sarai, the foreign policy
spokesman for the FDP in parliament. He is in favor of an immediate moratorium.
"It was a mistake from the very beginning to ignore the political backdrop
to Nord Stream 2. It is now coming back to bite the government," he says.
But even
members of political parties in Merkel's governing coalition, which pairs her
conservatives with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), are increasingly
demanding that the pipeline project be abandoned. One is Norbert Röttgen, a
candidate to become chairman of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the
chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Germany's federal parliament, the
Bundestag. Another is Manfred Weber, head of the European People's Party group
in European Parliament, to which German conservatives belong. "Of course,
the most severe measure is part of the list of possible sanctions: a partial
stop to the purchase of raw materials," Weber says. "The end of Nord
Stream 2 can no longer be excluded."
Within the
government, however, that step remains off limits. Officially, at least. In the
background, cabinet members admit that the option must at least be discussed.
Construction on the project has been suspended anyway because the United States
has threatened sanctions. It wouldn't be that difficult, in other words, for
the government to announce a moratorium itself and take ownership of the
construction suspension.
The
chancellor, though, would much prefer a European solution. The Navalny case,
she is convinced, isn't just an issue for Germany.
The first
opportunity to formulate a joint response came in the form of a Thursday
meeting of the Political and Security Committee in Brussels. The committee
includes ambassadorial level delegates from the EU member states and the
Navalny case was at the very top of the agenda. Germany's EU partners expressed
appreciation for the fact that Navalny had been brought to Berlin for medical
treatment. That evening, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the
bloc was considering "restrictive measures."
Defending
EU Interests
Within the
EU, it is considered conceivable that sanctions could be levied against persons
in Putin's immediate orbit, as happened following the poisoning of the double
agent Sergei Skripal. A former Russian spy who had defected, Skripal and his
daughter were both poisoned with Novichok in 2018 in the English town of
Salisbury. They both survived.
Many
diplomats, however, point to the differences between the Skripal poisonings and
the Navalny case. For one, the 2018 attack took place on EU territory, while
Navalny was poisoned in Russia. Furthermore, British citizens came into contact
with the nerve agent during the Skripal attack, while EU citizens were not
endangered by the Navalny attack. More than anything, though, investigators
were able to relatively clearly identify the perpetrators in the Skripal
attack, while that has not thus far been the case this time around. Borrell said
through his office that as long as we don't know who was responsible, it is
challenging to discuss punitive measures.
Daniel
Caspary, head of German conservatives in the European Parliament, believes that
the attack on Navalny is just more evidence that Putin doesn't take EU foreign
policy seriously. "The poisoning shows that the EU isn't even close to
being able to defend its interests, even in its immediate neighborhood,"
Caspary says.
EU
diplomats who have long been involved in Russia policy hold similar views.
"It's is clear that Putin is showing Europe the middle finger," says
one. "Russia is completely unconcerned about the fact that well-respected
scientists have now proven a connection to Moscow. Indeed, that's what the
Russians want." The fact that EU foreign policy chief Borrell has
condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms" and demanded a
Russian investigation, the diplomat says, will not have much of an effect in
Moscow, absent the threat of specific penalties.
Furthermore,
it is doubtful whether it will ever be possible to clearly pin the attack on
the Kremlin. Novichok may have been originally developed in the Soviet Union,
but it has long since found its way to other countries as well.
A Delicate
Offer
Germany, in
fact, contributed to that spread. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a
Russian scientist made the offer to the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND),
Germany's foreign intelligence agency, to discretely remove a substance from
the country that officially didn't exist: a binary nerve agent from a secret
chemical weapons program with the codename "Foliant." The term
"binary" refers to the fact that it can be mixed together shortly
before use from two much less harmful substances. That means that not only can
the production of the poison be concealed, but it is much safer to transport.
The scientist wanted to take his family to the West, and he saw the nerve agent
as his ticket.
The offer
was too delicate for the BND to decide on its own, and ultimately, the
Chancellery of Helmut Kohl decided to bring the valuable mole to Germany - but
it was resolved that the substance he had on offer would be analyzed elsewhere.
The scientist's wife smuggled two vials of the substances to Sweden in 1997
where it was analyzed in a military laboratory. The result: Novichok.
The BND
proudly shared its coup with important NATO partners, including Britain and the
U.S., though they already had knowledge of the poison. The analyses, though,
would later help British specialists prove the use of Novichok in the Skripal
case, even if a different variety was used in that attack.
"I
Feel Culpable"
In addition
to the samples smuggled to Sweden, additional quantities of the substance found
their way onto the black market. The source was at least one frustrated
employee of a secret laboratory in the town of Shikhany, not far from the
border to Kazakhstan. The chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union had
led to salaries at the laboratory going unpaid for an extended period.
According
to British intelligence reports, the Novichok used in the Skripal attack is
linked to the Shikhany laboratory. A high-ranking scientist at the time named
Leonid Rink produced a batch of Novichok in 1994, according to the report, and
then stored it in glass vials, with each vial containing 0.25 grams of the
substances. He stored several of them in his garage. According to court
documents, Rink sold his vials to criminals from Chechnya and one from Latvia,
who claimed he needed it for "self-defense." Rink sold the vials for
$1,500 to $1,800 each.
If stored
correctly, experts believe the samples can remain potent for decades. When DER
SPIEGEL reached Rink by phone on Thursday, he loyally disputed the notion that
Navalny had been poisoned by Novichok. "That is complete nonsense. Even if
they found something, it's not poison, there was no poisoning." He said
his country is being smeared. Then, he hung up.
His former
colleague Vil Mirzayanov has a completely different take. He was the person who
publicly revealed the existence of the new Russian family of nerve agents in
the early 1990s. Today, the 85-year-old lives in Princeton in the U.S.
"Rink has to say such things," Mirzayanov says.
He also has
a completely different view of the Navalny poisoning. "State structures
are behind it. Without Putin, a thing like this isn't possible in Russia,
because such attacks always trigger an international scandal. Regarding his own
role, he is rather critical of himself: "I deeply regret having worked in
this area and having made a contribution to the development of the nerve agent.
I feel culpable."
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário