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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has accused President Vladimir Putin of being behind his poisoning, in his first interview published since he left the German hospital where he was treated.
“I assert that Putin is behind this act, I don’t see any other explanation,” he told the German weekly Der Spiegel, which published extracts from the interview on its website , reported news agency AFP.
Navalny was evacuated to Berlin for treatment after he collapsed in August while on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow after a campaign trip to support opposition candidates in local elections.
The Kremlin critic was discharged just over a week ago and his first comments to the press came as European leaders were holding a summit during which the question of a response to Russia may be raised over the Kremlin critic’s case.
Germany, which holds the presidency of the EU, has said toxicology tests show he was poisoned by the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
France and Sweden have independently corroborated Germany’s findings.
