The poisoning of Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny was probably orchestrated by "
senior officials
" of the Russian government, said Wednesday, September 9 the head of American diplomacy Mike Pompeo, further increasing international pressure on Moscow.
"
When (people) see the efforts to poison a dissident, and they admit that there is a good chance that it is coming from senior Russian officials, I think it is not good for the Russian people.
" , said the US Secretary of State.
Read also: Renaud Girard: "With the Navalny affair, Russia shoots itself in the foot"
Mike Pompeo reaffirmed that Washington and its European allies all want to see Russia "held
accountable to those responsible
".
He added that the Americans would try to identify the culprits.
“
This is something that we are going to look at, assess, and make sure that we do what we have to do to reduce the likelihood of something like this happening again,
” explained Mike Pompeo.
Last week, Donald Trump, often accused of laxity vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin, explained that he "had
not yet seen
" evidence of the poisoning of Alexey Navalny, while Germany had already claimed that he had been poisoned by a "
Novichok-type
"
nerve
agent
.
Russia assures her that no trace of poison has been detected by its doctors in the body of Alexeï Navalny and questions the version of the Europeans, seeing it as a "
campaign of disinformation
" to impose new sanctions on it.
On Tuesday, the G7 countries urged Moscow to bring “
urgently
” to justice the authors of “
confirmed poisoning
” of Alexey Navalny, denouncing
any use of chemical weapons
as “
unacceptable
”.