"Completely reprehensible" is how Jim Gilmore, U.S. Ambassdor to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) described the poisoning Thursday of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
Gilmore’s denunciation of the Navalny poisoning is the strongest language yet from an American official on the controversy that has been brewing since the man the Wall Street Journal called “the man Vladimir Putin fears most” collapsed on a flight from Omsk, Siberia two weeks ago.
But several of Navalny’s anti-Putin dissidents have said they are anxious for a comment from President Trump himself and critical words would have the most impact on the Russian government and Putin himself.
Gilmore made his remarks at the meeting of the Permanent Council of the OSCE in Austria in response to the rhetorical question of the Russian Ambassador to OSCE Alexander Lukashevich: “who is to gain?” from the poisoning of Navalny.
“That is a strange and troubling statement,” Gilmore remonstrated, “I am frankly stunned by the comments of the representative of the Russian Federation here today – to suggest that somehow some grave conspiracy from Western intelligence agencies may have made Mr. Navalny sick in Omsk. “
Gilmore, a former state attorney general and governor of Virginia, went on to remind his fellow OSCE delegates that German physicians concluded Navalny was a victim of the deadly chemical agent “Novichok.”
“[T]his is the same group of banned chemical weapons agents that Russia used to poison Sergey and Yulia Skripal,” declared Gilmore, referring to the former Russian military intelligence officer (and double agent for the U.K.) and his daughter who were poisoned in 2018 and barely survived.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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