Kremlin: Navalny suffers ‘delusions of persecution, megalomania’

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that opposition leader Alexey Navalny was a “sick” man who suffered psychological complexes surrounding authority and power, after he claimed Russian security services had poisoned him.

Navalny said on Monday that the FSB security service was behind an attempted assassination by poisoning in August in an incident that led the European Union to sanction senior Russian officials.

The 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner has “delusions of persecution,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Navalny also exhibited clear “traits of megalomania”.

The FSB on Monday described evidence provided in Navalny’s claims as “fake” and accused the Kremlin critic of having received support from foreign intelligence services.

Peskov said on Monday that the FSB “protects you and me from terrorism” and described the domestic intelligence agency as “effective”.

He added: “Such attempts cannot discredit the FSB”.

Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry summoned the ambassadors of Germany, Sweden and France on Tuesday over European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow over the alleged poisoning of Navalny, the RIA news agency reported.

The European Union has imposed sanctions on top Russian officials close to President Vladimir Putin over the incident.

Navalny fell violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August and was hospitalised in the city of Omsk before being transported to Berlin by medical aircraft.