Aides to Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny yesterday accused doctors of risking his life by refusing to allow him to be moved from a Siberian hospital after his suspected poisoning.
Navalny, a 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who is among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, was in a coma in intensive care in Omsk after he lost consciousness while on a flight and his plane made an emergency landing on Thursday.
Aides say they believe he was poisoned and that something was put in his tea at an airport cafe.
Photo: AFP
An air ambulance was on its way to fly him to Germany for treatment but Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said doctors were refusing to allow him to be moved.
“The chief doctor stated that Navalny is not transportable” because his condition was “unstable,” Yarmysh said on Twitter, calling the decision “a direct threat to his life.”
“The ban on the transportation of Navalny is an attempt on his life, which is being made right now by doctors and the deceitful authorities who sanctioned it,” Yarmysh said.
Doctors have said his condition was serious but stable and have yet to make any official diagnosis.
Navalny’s team said earlier that the hospital in Omsk was ill-equipped and his doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, said she had asked for the Kremlin’s help to transfer him to a European clinic.
Yarmysh said an air ambulance dispatched to fly him to Germany for treatment was due to land shortly.
It left Nuremberg early yesterday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel extended an offer of treatment.
Foreign leaders including Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have voiced concern for Navalny, who has faced repeated physical attacks and prosecutions in more than a decade of opposition to Russian authorities.
He lost consciousness shortly after his plane took off on Thursday from Tomsk in Siberia, where he was working to support opposition candidates ahead of regional elections next month.
Yarmysh said he had seemed “absolutely fine” before boarding the flight and had only consumed a cup of tea at the airport.
She said she was sure he had suffered from an “intentional poisoning” and put the blame on Putin.
“Whether or not he gave the order personally, the blame lies with him,” she said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said claims of poisoning were “only assumptions” until tests proved otherwise.
He wished Navalny a “speedy recovery” after pledging Kremlin help to secure him treatment abroad if needed.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said that “those responsible must be held to account” if the suspected poisoning was confirmed.
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