A critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin now in a coma and being treated in a Berlin hospital was poisoned with a nerve agent of the Novichok family, a German government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Toxicology tests of blood samples from Alexei Navalny conducted at a German military laboratory-produced "unequivocal evidence" that the Russian opposition critic had been poisoned with Novichok, Steffen Seibert said in an emailed statement.
"The federal government will inform its partners in the EU and NATO of the results of the investigation," Seibert added. "It will discuss an appropriate joint response with the partners in the light of the Russian response."