Richard StoneOn 2 September, German Chancellor Angela Merkel revealed that Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition politician, had been poisoned with a nerve agent “identified unequivocally in tests” as a Novichok—one of a family of exotic Soviet-era chemical weapons.
Merkel, a chemist by training, did not reveal the nature of the tests, conducted in a military lab in Munich. But scientists familiar with Novichoks have a good idea how the toxicological sleuths went about it—and are impressed at how fast the culprit was unmasked.Navalny fell ill on 20 August after drinking a cup of tea at a Siberian airport.
He lapsed into a coma and was flown to Berlin two days later; in a statement yesterday, the hospital treating him said that he is out of.