Kremlin brushes off Putin critic poison claim

The Russian government has brushed off al le gations that opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned and said there have been no grounds for a criminal investigation so far because the politician’s condition may have been triggered by other causes.

The insistence that Navalnywasn’ t necessarily poisoned– comments amplified by Russian doctors and pro-kremlin media – came a day after German doctors said tests indicated that he was poisoned and elicited outrage from Navalny’s allies, who say the Kremlin was behind the illness of its most prominent critic.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitr y Peskov dismissed the accusations, saying they “absolutely cannot be true and are rather an empty noise”.

“We do not intend to take it seriously,” Peskov said.