Pressure mounts on Russia as Navalny out of his coma

The UK government has increased the pressure on Moscow to explain the circumstances around the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny by summoning the Russian ambassador to the UK to the Foreign Office over the suspected No vic hok attack.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain was registering its “deep concern” about the alleged use of the nerve agent by summoning Andrei Kelin to speak to a senior official yesterday and called on Russia to carr y out a “full, transparent investigation”. Mr Raab has said it is “difficult to come up with a plausible alternative” to Moscow being behind the poisoning of the vocal critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The diplomat’s summoning came as Mr Navalny was brought out of a coma by doctors in Berlin, where the 44-year- old has been treated since falling ill on a domestic flight in Russia on 20 August.

Mr Raab tweeted: “Today the UK summoned Russia’ s Ambassador to the UK to register deep concern about the poisoning of Alexei @Navalny.

“It’s completely unacceptable that a banned chemical weapon has been used and Russia must hold a full, transparent investigation.” Russia has denied the Kremlin was involved in poisoning Mr Navalny.

But there is increasing pressure for Mr Putin to explain how his critic fell seriously ill, allegedly with the same chemical weap - on used against Russian former double agent Sergei Skripal.