Vienna has summoned Russian Ambassador to Austria Dmitry Lyubinsky over the case of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.
"I consider inappropriate the sounding demands addressed to Russia to conduct a quick, open and comprehensive investigation in the absence of any information, facts and specific data from the German side, as well as any general reaction on the merits of the issues of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office in the request of August 27," the ambassador said on Facebook.
Earlier this week, Berlin claimed that a German military laboratory possessed undeniable proof of 44-year-old Navalny's poisoning with a nerve agent from the Novichok group.
Responding to the claims, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted that the German government's position lacks evidence, and added that it was perplexing why Berlin first addressed the EU, NATO and third parties, such as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in relation to the case, instead of contacting Russia directly.
On 20 August, Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny fell gravely ill during a domestic Russian flight. Following an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk, he was taken to a local hospital and, according to regional doctors, he arrived just 17 minutes after landing.
For the next 44 hours, doctors waged an uninterrupted struggle for his life, as he went into a coma and was put on an artificial lung ventilator.
Upon conducting multiple tests, Russian medics established that no traces of poison had been found in his system, saying that Navalny's condition was caused by an abrupt drop of glucose in his blood due to a metabolic imbalance.
On 22 August, Navalny was flown to Berlin for further treatment. German doctors claimed that they had found traces of a substance from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors in his body, which the Russian doctors denied, referring to his test results