BRUSSELS (AFP) - Nato on Thursday (Sept 3) announced a special meeting of its ruling council to discuss the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with Novichok.

The North Atlantic Council will meet on Friday, with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to address the media afterwards.

German officials will brief the other 29 allies, after Berlin announced there was "unequivocal evidence" the 44-year-old Kremlin critic had been poisoned with the nerve agent.

Novichok was the substance used against Russian ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English town of Salisbury two years ago.

The Skripal case - the first use of offensive use of chemical weapons in Europe since World War II - prompted NATO to expel seven Russian diplomats in retaliation.

The Navalny poisoning, the latest in a long series of assassination attempts against Kremlin critics, has triggered international outrage and demands for punitive measures against Moscow.