The Kremlin said Wednesday it doesn't want the illness of Russia's opposition leader, who is in a coma in a German hospital after a suspected poisoning, to affect relations with the West as international pressure mounted on Moscow to investigate Alexei Navalny's condition.
The statement came two days after doctors at the Berlin hospital where the 44-year-old is being treated said tests indicated he was poisoned, and minutes before before U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined other Western officials in demanding a transparent investigation.
"Of course, we wouldn't want that... Secondly, there is no reason whatsoever for it," Peskov told reporters. "We are absolutely, no less than others, interested in understanding what led to a coma." These act by blocking the breakdown of a key chemical in the body, acetycholine, that transmits signals between nerve cells. Navalny is being treated with the antidote atropine.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. "stands ready to assist" with a probe, if reports of a poisoning "prove accurate." The Kremlin said Tuesday there were no grounds for a criminal investigation so far since it hasn't been fully established what caused the politician to fall into a coma. Peskov said Navalny's condition may have been triggered by other causes.
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