Members of European Parliament “expressed deepest concern at the case of Mr Alexei Navalnyi, the founder of the Russian Anti-Corruption Foundation, who is in a medically-induced coma since 20 August after becoming seriously ill due to what preliminary tests conducted at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin hospital in Berlin indicate to be poisoning.”

MEPs David McAllister and Andrius Kubilius said “it is high time for the Russian authorities to act responsibly and do everything in their power to ensure that the instigators and perpetrators of all those crimes are held to account, as only a clear and unequivocal sign that the Russian judicial system is working and willing to prosecute political violence will bring it to an end.”

“The case of Mr Navalnyi is unfortunately not the first one involving acts of violence against representatives of the Russian political opposition in the recent past, and comes in the middle of a widespread crackdown on journalists and dissenting voices in Russia. It is also unfortunately not the last, as another leading Russian opposition blogger, Mr Yegor Zhukov, has been beaten up on 30 August close to his home in Moscow.

The case of Mr Navalnyi has however a disturbing similarity with the poisonings of Mr Sergej Skripal, his daughter Julia and Mr Alexandr Litvinenko in the UK, Ms Anna Politkovskaya and Mr Pyotr Verzilov in Russia, on all of which the Russian authorities have failed to shed light,” the statement reads.