Alexei Navalny is in intensive care
Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has been hospitalised after suffering a suspected poisoning, his spokeswoman has said.
Navalny became ill while on a plane, and made an emergency landing in Omsk. He is currently in a serious but stable condition.
Kira Yarmysh, press secretary for the Anti-Corruption Foundation which was founded by Navalny, tweeted “This morning Navalny was returning to Moscow from Tomsk. During the flight, he felt ill. The plane made an urgent landing in Omsk. Alexei has toxic poisoning.”
“We suspect that Alexei was poisoned by something mixed into [his] tea. It was the only thing he drank since morning. Doctors are saying that the toxic agent absorbed faster through the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious.”
She later added that the hospital “already has more police than doctors,” and also shared an image from the hospital corridor.
Это только маленькая часть полицейских в коридоре реанимации pic.twitter.com/EE4xfu79Xq
— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) August 20, 2020
The deputy head physician of the hospital told media that they were not yet certain if Navalny had been poisoned, but cited “natural poisoning” as a possible diagnosis being considered.
Alexei Navalny has been a vocal and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin.
The campaigner has accused the president’s system of “sucking the blood out of Russia,” and called Putin’s United Russia as “the party of crooks and thieves”.
The Wall Street Journal has described him as “the man Vladimir Putin fears most”.
Navalny tried to run against Putin in the 2018 presidential race, but his candidacy was stopped by authorities as he had been convicted of embezzlement by a Russian court, which means he cannot run for office.
He was briefly imprisoned on the charges in 2013, but said that his punishment was political.
He was also jailed in July 2019, over unauthorised protests from his support of independent candidates in the 2019 Moscow City Duma election. During that sentence, he also hospitalised with damage to his eyes and skin.
In 2019, his Anti-Corruption Foundation was officially declared a “foreign agent” by Russia, mean that it would be subject to more checks and investigation by authorities.
