Yahoo Finance Russian activist Alexei Navalny in coma after suspected poisoning
The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma and on a ventilator in a hospital intensive care unit after a suspected poisoning his supporters believe is tied to his anti-Kremlin activism.
An outspoken critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Navalny was returning to Moscow by plane from Siberia when he fell ill, prompting the captain to make an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was taken to hospital. A mobile video shot on the plane showed medical personnel rushing onboard as Navalny screamed in agony.
The 44-year-old’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh told the Echo of Moscow radio station that Navalny had begun sweating and then lost consciousness shortly after take-off.
“I am sure this was deliberate poisoning,” she said, added that she suspected a cup of black tea he drank at an airport cafe was the source. She tied the alleged poisoning to upcoming elections in the Siberian regions they had visited.
Related: Alexei Navalny and the long history of poisoned Kremlin critics
Officials at the emergency care hospital in Omsk where Navalny is being treated gave contradictory information about his condition and have not allowed his family or supporters in to see him. Anatoly Kalinichenko, the deputy chief doctor of the hospital, confirmed that Navalny was unconscious and on a ventilator, but called his condition “stable”. Doctors “are currently engaged in the process of saving his life”, he said on Thursday afternoon.
If confirmed as a poison attack, it would be the latest in a series of high-profile assaults, often with poison, against opposition figures and Russian dissidents that includes the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and the 2015 shooting death of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov.
Born in 1976 just outside Moscow, Alexei Navalny is a lawyer-turned-campaigner whose Anti-Corruption Foundation investigates the wealth of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
He started out as a Russian nationalist, but emerged as the main leader of Russia's democratic opposition during the wave of protests that led up to the 2012 presidential election, and has since been a thorn in the Kremlin’s side.
Navalny is barred from appearing on state television, but has used social media to his advantage. A 2017 documentary accusing the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, of corruption received more than 30m views on YouTube within two months.
He has been repeatedly arrested and jailed. The European court of human rights ruled that Russia violated Navalny's rights by holding him under house arrest in 2014. Election officials barred him from running for president in 2018 due to an embezzlement conviction that he claims was politically motivated. Navalny told the commission its decision would be a vote 'not against me, but against 16,000 people who have nominated me; against 200,000 volunteers who have been canvassing for me'.
There has also been a physical price to pay. In April 2017, he was attacked with green dye that nearly blinded him in one eye, and in July 2019 he was taken from jail to hospital with symptoms that one of his doctors said could indicate poisoning.
“There was always a worry [about an attack] because Navalny has been the main opponent of Putin and the main opponent of the Kremlin,” said Lyubov Sobol, an ally and lawyer at Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Even as he lay in a coma in hospital, there were signs of pressure on the opposition leader’s family members and political allies. Hospital officials had initially barred Navalny’s wife and a personal doctor from visiting him because Navalny, though unconscious, had not given them permission, Yarmysh said.
Hospital staff had also refused to show them the results of tests that would indicate a poisoning, she said. Investigators who said they wanted to check for medicines or other potential toxins had also seized his belongings, she said.
Pavel Lebedev, a passenger on the flight, wrote on Instagram that Navalny went to the toilet at the beginning of the flight and did not come back. “He started feeling very poorly. They could barely revive him and he’s still crying out in pain,” said Lebedev, who also published a photograph of Navalny drinking from a paper cup at the airport cafe before the flight.
Other video published by several Russian news sites showed the opposition leader being wheeled on a stretcher from the plane to an ambulance waiting on the tarmac in Omsk.
Yarmysh drew a parallel with an incident last year in which Navalny had an acute allergic reaction that one doctor said could have resulted from poisoning with an unknown chemical. “One year ago, Alexei was poisoned when he was in jail,” she wrote. “Clearly the same thing has happened again.”
The German NGO Cinema for Peace Foundation said it was sending an air ambulance to pick up Navalny on Thursday evening and take him to Germany, where it said Berlin’s Charité hospital was ready to treat him. Supporters had earlier in the day indicated that they wanted to move Navalny abroad for treatment but it was not clear whether Russian authorities would allow it.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there would have to be test results before an investigation into poisoning could be opened. Peskov told journalists that he would provide help to have Navalny transferred abroad, if asked. “Just like any citizen of our country, we wish him a speedy recovery,” he said.
(August 9, 1999) Acting prime minister
Boris Yeltsin sacks his cabinet and appoints Putin, a political neophyte who headed the main successor to the KGB, as his acting prime minister and heir apparent.
(December 31, 1999) Acting president
Yeltsin stuns Russia and the world by using his traditional new year message to announce his resignation and hand his sweeping powers, including the nuclear suitcase, to Putin.
(March 23, 2000) President (first term)
Putin wins a surprisingly narrow majority in his first presidential election, taking 53% of the vote and avoiding a second round run-off.
(March 14, 2004) President (second term)
Putin consolidates his centralised control of power by cruising to a second term as president with 71% of the vote, having limited press access to his opponents and harassing their campaigns.
(May 8, 2008) Prime minister
Putin is prevented by the constitution from running for a third term as president. The First deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev is elected in his stead. One of his earliest moves is to appoint Putin as prime minister, leaving little doubt that the two men plan, at the very least, to run Russia in tandem.
(March 4, 2012) President (third term)
Amid widespread allegations of vote-rigging, Putin returns to the role of president, taking 63.6%. Medvedev becomes his prime minister. "Putin has named himself the emperor of Russia for the next 12 years," says protest leader Alexei Navalny.
(March 18, 2018) President (fourth term)
Putin is re-elected until 2024 with 77% of the vote, amid high tensions between London and Moscow over the Salisbury nerve agent attack. Opposition activists highlight a number of cases of vote-rigging and statistical anomalies.
(June 25, 2020)
Russia holds a yes/no referendum on various topics including a proposal to amend the constitution to allow Putin to seek another two terms in the Kremlin. The resolution passes, potentially allowing him to rule as president until 2036.
Navalny, who has campaigned against Putin’s rule for years, was travelling through several cities in Siberia to back candidates he supports in local elections involving 40 million voters next month. He posed with supporters for a photograph from Tomsk posted on Wednesday, calling for more volunteers. “These crooks won’t kick themselves out of office,” he wrote.
Related: A cup of tea, then screams of agony: how Alexei Navalny was left fighting for his life
He may also have been gathering information for an investigation into local United Russia politicians, the local news site Tayga.Info reported. Revelations of corruption in his investigations into senior members of the Russian government have fuelled street protests and provoked angry threats from powerful officials.
“There is no doubt that Navalny was poisoned for his political position and activity,” said Vyacheslav Gimadi, the head of the legal department of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Navalny was also attacked in 2017 with a green dye that left him with partial blindness in one eye.
Navalny has noted with enthusiasm the protests in Belarus against its president, Alexander Lukashenko. In a recent appearance on his YouTube channel, Navalny spoke of how successful strikes by key workers in Belarus had forced authorities to start engaging with protesters.
Several journalists and opposition figures have been targeted with poison since Putin came to power in 2000. Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist, nearly died after drinking a spiked cup of tea onboard a Russian flight in 2004. Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who defected to the UK, died in 2006 of radiation sickness after ingesting a lethal dose of polonium-210 slipped into his tea. One of the men accused over his poisoning is now an MP in Russia’s parliament. The opposition activist Pyotr Verzilov recently revealed a poisoning attempt against his life in Moscow in 2018.
