Kremlin dismisses Navalny poisoning allegations

MOSCOW — The Kremlin brushed off allegations Tuesday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was the victim of a poisoning orchestrated by authorities and said there were no grounds for a criminal investigation because it hasn’t been established what caused the politician to fall into a coma.

The Russian government’s insistence that Navalny wasn’t necessarily the victim of a deliberate poisoning — comments amplified by Russian doctors and pro-kremlin media — came a day after doctors at a German hospital where the 44-year-old is being treated said tests indicated he was poisoned.

Moscow’s dismissals elicited outrage from Navalny’s allies, who allege the Kremlin was behind the illness of its most prominent critic.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accusations against the government “absolutely cannot be true and are rather an empty noise.”

Peskov said he saw no grounds for launching a criminal investigation, saying that Navalny’s condition could have been triggered by a variety of causes and determining what it was should come first.

“If a substance (that caused the condition) is found, and if it is determined that it is poisoning, then there will be a reason for an investigation,” Peskov said.

Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk.

Over the weekend, he was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, where doctors Monday said they have found signs of “cholinesterase inhibitors” in his system.

They act by blocking the breakdown of a chemical in the body, acetycholine, that transmits signals between nerve cells.