The Kremlin said Thursday there was no reason to blame the Russian state after Germany said opposition politician Alexei Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. "We would not want our partners in Germany and other European countries to rush to some sort of judgement," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "There is no reason to accuse the Russian state." He insisted there was no reason for the West to introduce new economic sanctions against Russia or halt the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. "We do not understand what could be the reason for some sort of sanctions," Peskov said. He said Russia wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened to President Vladimir Putin's top critic, adding that poisoning him was not to anyone's advantage. "I don't think that anyone could benefit from this," Peskov said. Peskov referred to the 44-year-old politician as the "Berlin patient", following a longstanding tradition of Putin and others in the Kremlin refusing to say Navalny's name. Germany announced on Wednesday that Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, the military grade substance that was also used on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain in 2018. The West has expressed outrage and calls are mounting for new sanctions, including nixing the Nord Stream 2 project, a 10 billion-euro ($11 billion) pipeline near completion beneath the Baltic Sea which is set to double Russian natural gas shipments to Germany. Navalny fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia last month and was initially treated in a Russian hospital before he was flown to Berlin for specialised treatment. He is still in a coma but is gradually improving, his doctors said Wednesday. mp-as/mm/wdb