Posted 20 октября 2020,, 15:44

Published 20 октября 2020,, 15:44

Modified 24 декабря 2022,, 22:36

Updated 24 декабря 2022,, 22:36

The puzzlement of the day: why didn't Trump condemn Russia for Novichok and Navalny's poisoning?

The puzzlement of the day: why didn't Trump condemn Russia for Novichok and Navalny's poisoning?

20 октября 2020, 15:44
The leaders of the leading Western European countries condemned our country, while the US President remains silent on this matter.

Journalist Alexander Kushnar drew attention to a rather strange circumstance: Donald Trump, unlike European leaders, did not condemn Russia for trying to poison Navalny:

“Everyone criticizes the European Union for“ insufficient ”(in fact, quite a sniper) sanctions in connection with the Kremlin's chemical attack against its own compatriot - and for some reason they forget that formally the United States did not impose any sanctions at all. Moreover, as part of countering Putinism, symbolic actions, such as condemnation and media demarche, are much more important, which was done both in France and in Germany, whose leaders openly called the incident an attempt on values, and the local media leaked information about Macron's anger on Putin.

Note Trump's behavior:

item 1: unlike his French and German counterparts, the American president did not publicly condemn the next use of Novichok;

item 2: in the first week after the chemical attack, the head of the White House declared the "absence" of evidence from Berlin;

item 3: at some point he said that he would be “very disappointed” if it turned out that it was the Russian special services who poisoned Navalny;

Item 4: after three European laboratories confirmed the use of Novice from a Russian military laboratory, and then the OPCW came to the same conclusion, Trump did not return to points 1-3.

Instead of Trump, the State Department has spoken on this issue several times, but the extreme context (two identified cases of Newbie in two years) requires the intervention of the President as the leading US foreign policy force. Such a suspicious hushing up of the situation was already condemned by Navalny himself (usually not inclined to such attacks against foreign leaders), who criticized Trump for ignoring the problem, which the politician described as "the use of chemical weapons in the 21st century." This is the right emphasis: we are talking not just about an attack on a political opponent within the country (this is more or less the practice of all dictatorships in general), but about an attack using prohibited weapons of mass destruction.

An interesting detail: immediately after the news of the fact of the application of the Newcomer, the United States imposed sanctions against the very chemical institute, which has now come under EU sanctions, however - and this is important - the American side did not officially link the blacklisting of the institute with the poisoning of Navalny, although in fact this the connection is obvious. That is, sanctions were imposed, but no symbolic condemnation of the attack on Navalny was made. Has Trump's position played a role here?"

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