Russia urges Germany to share data about Navalny

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Foreign Ministry has summoned the German ambassador to hand him a strongly-worded protest over what it described as Berlin's unfounded accusations of Moscow's involvement in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalny, a fierce, high-profile critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was flown to Germany last month after falling ill on Aug. 20 on a domestic flight in Russia. German chemical weapons experts say tests show the 44-year-old was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent, prompting the German government last week to demand that Russia investigate the case.

The German hospital treating him said Monday that Navalny's condition has improved, allowing doctors to take him out of an induced coma.

Russia has demanded that German authorities provide its prosecutors with the data that led them to conclude “without doubt” that Navalny was poisoned with a military nerve agent from the Novichok group, the same class of Soviet-era agent that British authorities said was used on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018.

On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry invited German Ambassador Geza Andreas von Geyr to protest what it called “unfounded accusations and ultimatums" against Russia put forward by the German government. It charged that Berlin has used the Navalny case ”as a pretext to discredit our country on the global arena."

The ministry said it reaffirmed Moscow's demand for German authorities to provide Russian authorities with the medical data, including biological materials, the results of samples and tests to allow Russian experts to study and check them. Russian doctors previously said they had found no sign of Navalny's poisoning.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it warned the German ambassador that Russia will see...