Russian authorities on Aug. 21 allowed comatose opposition leader Alexei Navalny to be flown to Germany for treatment after initially preventing independent doctors from treating him and giving him a diagnosis, Omsk-based media outlet Gorod55 reported, citing the Omsk clinic where Navalny is being treated.
On Aug. 20, Navalny fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow and was hospitalized at an emergency clinic in Omsk in Siberia, where the plane made an emergency landing. He fell into a coma and was placed on a lung ventilator.
Navalny’s relatives and supporters do not trust Russian investigators and the ill-equipped Omsk clinic, which is led by a member of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. They have arranged for him to be flown to a German clinic for treatment.
However, Russian authorities on Aug. 21 initially blocked Navalny’s wife Yulia from transporting him by plane to the German clinic and prevented her from accessing German doctors who had flown to Russia to take Navalny.
Navalny’s wife and supporters argued that Russian authorities’ actions pose a serious risk to Navalny’s life and are aimed at hiding the evidence of his poisoning.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov initially promised help in transporting Navalny abroad, but later backtracked, saying that Russian doctors will not allow the transfer.
Russia’s most popular opposition leader fell sick just ahead of the Sept. 13 local elections in Russia, during which he hoped to beat Putin’s United Russia through his “smart vote” strategy – supporting the strongest candidates from any party competing against United Russia.
The apparent poisoning also incapacitates the main opposition leader as the Kremlin is increasingly worried about unprecedented protests against President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus and large-scale demonstrations against the arrest of Khabarovsk Krai’s popular governor, Sergei Furgal, in Russia’s Far East.
Suspicious clinic
Navalny’s supporters suspect that he was poisoned while drinking tea at an airport in the city of Tomsk. A photograph on social media taken by a fan appeared to show Navalny drinking at a Tomsk airport café.
Doctors from the Omsk clinic initially refused to provide information on Navalny’s condition and tried to prevent his wife from accessing him, although she eventually did.
The clinic was also flooded with police officers and security officials, who Navalny’s associates argue created an intimidating atmosphere. They prevented one of Navalny’s personal doctors from seeing him.
The hospital said that he was in stable but serious condition. After initially acknowledging that Navalny had probably been poisoned, the hospital’s physicians later claimed that there was no evidence of poisoning. The physicians’ line echoed official Russian propaganda, which tried to downplay the incident and claim that there was no poisoning.
The clinic’s doctors later diagnosed Navalny with a metabolic disorder that was probably caused by low blood sugar. Navalny’s supporters met that diagnosis with skepticism.
“Metabolic disorders can be a symptom of many diseases,” Navalny’s personal doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva said. “This is a symptom, not a diagnosis… They think we are idiots. They utter smart words but are not capable of identifying the reason for the coma and establishing the diagnosis.”
The hospital’s leadership also refused to allow Navalny’s transfer to Germany, claiming he cannot be transported.
When German doctors arrived at the Omsk clinic on Aug. 21, police and security officials prevented Yulia Navalnaya from meeting the doctors by force. She said that “it’s obvious that they are hiding something from us.”
“German doctors concluded that Navalny’s condition allows him to be transported to a German clinic by plane,” Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter… “The ban on Navalny’s transportation is only aimed at procrastinating until the poison in his organism cannot be traced. And every hour of delay creates a lethal threat to his life.”
Previous attacks
Navalny has been attacked with dangerous substances before. In 2017, an attacker threw green antiseptic into his eyes. He potentially could have lost his eyesight, but eventually recovered. In 2019, Navalny was also hospitalized after a possible poisoning in a detention facility.
He is not the first critic of the Kremlin to have been poisoned.
In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer and defector, was poisoned with polonium in the United Kingdom and died. A public inquiry concluded that Litvinenko’s murder was an operation by Russia’s FSB security service that was probably personally approved by Putin.
Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and a member of Russia’s legislature, is wanted by British police on suspicion of murdering Litvinenko.
In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former Russian security officer, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the U.K. with the Novichok nerve agent, although they survived. Anatoly Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin – officers of Russia’s GRU intelligence service – are suspected by British police of trying to murder them and of murdering Dawn Sturgess, a British woman who died after coming into contact with the Novichok.
Many Russian opposition activists and politicians have become targets of suspected poisonings before. These include Yury Shekochikhin in 2003, opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza in 2015 and 2017, Sergei Mokhov in 2016, Pyotr Verzilov in 2018 and Dmitry Bykov in 2019.
Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned on board an airplane in 2004 before she was murdered with a handgun in 2006. Writer and columnist Yulia Latynina left Russia after she was attacked at her home with a pungent and caustic type of gas in 2017.
Dozens of critics of Putin’s regime have been murdered – including, most notably, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in 2015 in front of the Kremlin.
The murders remain unsolved.
