United States Secretary Marco Rubio on Sunday said America had no reason to dispute the assessment of the death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny made by five European allies.
“We’re aware of that case of Mr. Navalny and certainly… we don’t have any reason to question it,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Slovakia, AFP reported. He called the findings of the report “troubling”, saying US was aware of it.
The assessment was made public in a joint statement by Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands on Saturday. When questioned why the US did not join the statement, Russia said that it was the European countries’ endeavour. “Those countries came to that conclusion. They coordinated that. We chose – Doesn’t mean we disagree with the outcome,” AFP cited Rubio as saying.
“We’re not disputing or getting into a fight with these countries over it. But it was their report, and they put that out there,” Rubio said, adding that sometimes nations do things based on the intelligence gathered by them.
What were the European countries’ findings on Navalny’s death?
The five European countries blamed Russia for the death of Navalny, alleging Moscow had used toxin from poison dart frogs to kill the Kremlin critic while he was held in an Arctic penal colony two years ago, Reuters reported.
The findings of the report said analyses of samples from Navalny’s body “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America. These are not naturally found in Russia.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has rejected the report as a “Western propaganda hoax”, according to the Russian state’s TASS news agency. “One must ask what kind of person would believe this nonsense about a frog,” the Russian embassy in London said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Kremlin would “comment accordingly” when the test results would be available “and the formulas for the substances are disclosed.”