In August 2020 in Russia, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was allegedly poisoned with a military chemical nerve agent of the "Novichok" group, which is prohibited for storage and production in the world [1]. The use of "Novichok" against Mr. Navalny has been confirmed by specialized laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden, as well as by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which constitutes a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) [2]. Many leading countries are confident that the chemical attack indeed happened [3]. Other prominent Russians, especially those critical of the Kremlin, have suffered poisoning attacks in the last two decades. [4].

Our aim is to give people on the DESY campus a platform to discuss this issue at a round-table and to share their opinions about the situation. We will discuss its possible consequence for the world politics and science.

The slides shown at the discussion are here

Some further links from the discssion: Meduza

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54552480

[2] https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020/12/c25dg19%28e%29.pdf

[3] https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020/12/Joint%20statement%20v1%20%28FINAL%29%20%281%29.pdf

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexei_Navalny

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