Russia’s prominent opposition leader and founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Alexei Navalny, is in a coma and said to be in critical condition after a suspected poisoning.
According to his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, it is likely “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.”
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is a brave & outspoken man who has been constantly targetted by the authorities. If it’s true that he’s now been poisoned, the brazenness of the Russian state beggars all belief. https://t.co/GgJTOQda2j
— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) August 20, 2020
Navalny was planned to return to Moscow Thursday but fell ill on his flight from Tomsk, Siberia, forcing an emergency landing in Omsk after about four hours in the air.
Footage filmed on the flight shows Navalny groaning in pain before being carried off in a stretcher where he was transported to a Siberian hospital.
“He’s in serious condition,” hospital chief physician Alexander Murakhovsky told Russian state news agency TASS.
While any poisoning will be determined through laboratory tests, there is a long-standing history of assassination attempts made on Vladimir Putin’s critics. In 2006, investigative reporter Anna Politikovskay was assassinated in her apartment building in Moscow after a failed attempt to poison her.
Concerned, doctors believe they will diagnose Navalny later today.
