Alexei Navalny in ‘critical’ situation after possible poisoning, says ally

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, has been grappling with severe stomach pain in jail that could be the result of slow-acting poison, a close ally said on Friday.

Ruslan Shaveddinov said an ambulance was called last week to the maximum security IK-6 penal colony at Melekhovo, about 250km east of Moscow, where Mr Navalny is being held.

“His situation is critical, we are all very concerned,” Mr Shaveddinov said.

“We understand that the situation must have been very bad if an ambulance was called,” he said, adding that prison authorities refused to have Mr Navalny admitted to hospital.

The lesson of Joe Biden’s presidency? Charisma and eloquence are overrated

---

Mayoral races could determine if Rishi Sunak sinks or swims

---

Not-so-shaggy dog tale may kill off Kristi Noem’s vice presidential hopes

---

‘I could rent an apartment, but why?’ The teenager who lives on Germany’s high-speed trains

---

There had been no update on Mr Navalny’s health condition since the ambulance arrived, Mr Shaveddinov said, because “the prison authorities are doing everything possible to isolate him”.

The 46-year-old is serving sentences totalling 11-and-a-half years on charges including fraud and contempt of court, which human rights groups say were made up to silence him.

Mr Navalny was poisoned with novichok, a Soviet-made nerve agent, on a trip to Siberia in 2020. He received treatment in Berlin and has accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of being behind the attack.

Worries over his health have been rising in recent months and have led to a rare petition earlier this year from a group of Russian politicians and doctors who have used their full names to demand that he receive better medical care, despite the risk to them of being prosecuted for voicing dissent.

Mr Shaveddinov said his team now believed Mr Navalny was being slowly poisoned. “Our theory is that they are gradually killing him, using slow-acting poison which is applied through food,” he said.

“It might sound like paranoia, but after the novichok poisoning, it seems completely plausible. He lost 8kg in two weeks, this hasn’t happened before and the doctors are not telling him why he is in so much pain,” Mr Shaveddinov said.

When asked about claims that Mr Navalny might be being slowly poisoned, Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, said the Kremlin was not following the state of his health and that it was a matter for the federal penitentiary service.

Mr Shaveddinov said prison authorities were trying to “break” Mr Navalny by regularly placing him in a punishment cell, for minor infringements of prison rules or without giving any explanation.

Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s director for eastern Europe and central, said: “Russian prison authorities are using the cruel methods they have been refining for years to try and break the spirit of Aleksei Navalny by making his existence in the penal colony unbearable, humiliating and dehumanising.”

Allies maintain a Twitter and Instagram feed featuring Mr Navalny’s communication through his lawyers.

His last social media post, published on Thursday, called on the authorities of Georgia to release the former president Mikheil Saakashvili from prison for medical treatment. – The Guardian