Russian activist Alexei Navalny unconscious after being 'poisoned'

20.08.2020 - 13:46, Güncelleme: 14.02.2024 - 06:37 1284+ kez okundu.
 

Russian activist Alexei Navalny unconscious after being 'poisoned'

Opposition politician may have been poisoned by toxic substance in his tea, says press secretary

The Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny is unconscious in a hospital intensive care unit after suffering from a suspected poisoning. “We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea,” his press secretary Kira Yarmysh tweeted. “That was the only thing he drank this morning. The doctors say that the toxin was absorbed more quickly because of the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious.” Doctors are “are currently engaged in the process of saving his life”, said Anatoly Kalinichenko, the deputy head of the hospital where the 44-year-old is being treated. Navalny is currently unconscious and on a ventilator, Kalinichenko told journalists. He described the opposition leader’s condition as “stable”, declining to give further details. An outspoken critic of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, Navalny was returning to Moscow by plane from Tomsk in Siberia when he began to feel ill, Yarmysh said. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk and he was taken to hospital, she said. A mobile video shot on the plane showed medical personnel rushing on board as a man screamed in agony. FacebookTwitterPinterest Video shows Alexei Navalny being stretchered off plane “At the beginning of the flight he went to the toilet and didn’t come back,” Pavel Lebedev, a passenger on the flight, wrote on Instagram. “He started feeling very poorly. They could barely revive him and he’s still crying out in pain,” added Lebedev, who also published a photo of Navalny drinking tea at the airport cafe before the flight. Advertisement Other video published by several Russian news sites showed the opposition leader being wheeled on a gurney from the plane to an ambulance waiting on the tarmac in Omsk. Yarmysh drew a parallel with an incident last year in which Navalny suffered an acute allergic reaction 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.” Doctors have not confirmed that Navalny was poisoned, although Kalinichenko said that they had received test results and made a diagnosis. The Tass state news agency citing a police source said that investigators were not considering poisoning as the possible cause of his sudden illness. A person in Moscow watches a video on social media showing Russian opposition activist and anti-corruption fund head Alexei Navalny being carried on a stretcher by an ambulance team, in Omsk. FacebookTwitterPinterest  A person in Moscow watches a video on social media showing Alexei Navalny being carried on a stretcher by an ambulance team in Omsk. Photograph: Sergei Chirikov/EPA Russian opposition leaders have been targeted with violence in the past. In 2015, opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was shot four times and killed within sight of the Kremlin. Five men from Chechnya were jailed in the attack, although his family believes that those who ordered the killing were never caught. Profile Who is Alexei Navalny? Show 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. Advertisement He may also have been gathering information for an investigation into local United Russia lawmakers, the local news site Taiga.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. A medic speaks on the phone outside the hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny is being treated in Omsk. FacebookTwitterPinterest  A medic speaks on the phone outside the hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny is being treated in Omsk. Photograph: Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP “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 Fund Against Corruption. Navalny was also attacked in 2017 with a green dye that left him with partial blindness in one eye. Advertisement Several opposition figures have been targeted with poison since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. 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 in his poisoning is now an MP in Russia’s parliament. Opposition activist Petr Verzilov recently revealed a poisoning attempt against his life in Moscow in 2018. Navalny has used the protests in Belarus against its president, Alexander Lukashenko, to try to persuade Russians to back candidates he supports in next month’s local elections. In a recent appearance on his YouTube channel, Navalny spoke excitedly of how successful strikes by key workers in Belarus had forced authorities to start engaging with protesters. Video clips of Belarusian workers declaring they had voted for the opposition accompanying his commentary were labelled “Russia of the future”. Activists believe they may face a Belarusian scenario when Putin comes up for re-election in 2024 after he successfully got the constitution changed to allow him to run again for president twice. “In today’s Belarus we can see ourselves in the near future,” said opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov. “The opposition candidate gets 80% and the dictator is struggling to get 10%, but the election commission simply swaps the results.”
Opposition politician may have been poisoned by toxic substance in his tea, says press secretary

The Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny is unconscious in a hospital intensive care unit after suffering from a suspected poisoning.

“We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea,” his press secretary Kira Yarmysh tweeted. “That was the only thing he drank this morning. The doctors say that the toxin was absorbed more quickly because of the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious.”

Doctors are “are currently engaged in the process of saving his life”, said Anatoly Kalinichenko, the deputy head of the hospital where the 44-year-old is being treated.

Navalny is currently unconscious and on a ventilator, Kalinichenko told journalists. He described the opposition leader’s condition as “stable”, declining to give further details.

An outspoken critic of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, Navalny was returning to Moscow by plane from Tomsk in Siberia when he began to feel ill, Yarmysh said.

The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk and he was taken to hospital, she said. A mobile video shot on the plane showed medical personnel rushing on board as a man screamed in agony.

FacebookTwitterPinterest
Video shows Alexei Navalny being stretchered off plane
“At the beginning of the flight he went to the toilet and didn’t come back,” Pavel Lebedev, a passenger on the flight, wrote on Instagram. “He started feeling very poorly. They could barely revive him and he’s still crying out in pain,” added Lebedev, who also published a photo of Navalny drinking tea at the airport cafe before the flight.

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Other video published by several Russian news sites showed the opposition leader being wheeled on a gurney from the plane to an ambulance waiting on the tarmac in Omsk.

Yarmysh drew a parallel with an incident last year in which Navalny suffered an acute allergic reaction 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.”

Doctors have not confirmed that Navalny was poisoned, although Kalinichenko said that they had received test results and made a diagnosis. The Tass state news agency citing a police source said that investigators were not considering poisoning as the possible cause of his sudden illness.

A person in Moscow watches a video on social media showing Russian opposition activist and anti-corruption fund head Alexei Navalny being carried on a stretcher by an ambulance team, in Omsk.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
 A person in Moscow watches a video on social media showing Alexei Navalny being carried on a stretcher by an ambulance team in Omsk. Photograph: Sergei Chirikov/EPA
Russian opposition leaders have been targeted with violence in the past. In 2015, opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was shot four times and killed within sight of the Kremlin. Five men from Chechnya were jailed in the attack, although his family believes that those who ordered the killing were never caught.

Profile
Who is Alexei Navalny?
Show
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.

Advertisement

He may also have been gathering information for an investigation into local United Russia lawmakers, the local news site Taiga.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.

A medic speaks on the phone outside the hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny is being treated in Omsk.
FacebookTwitterPinterest
 A medic speaks on the phone outside the hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny is being treated in Omsk. Photograph: Evgeniy Sofiychuk/AP
“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 Fund Against Corruption. Navalny was also attacked in 2017 with a green dye that left him with partial blindness in one eye.

Advertisement
Several opposition figures have been targeted with poison since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. 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 in his poisoning is now an MP in Russia’s parliament. Opposition activist Petr Verzilov recently revealed a poisoning attempt against his life in Moscow in 2018.

Navalny has used the protests in Belarus against its president, Alexander Lukashenko, to try to persuade Russians to back candidates he supports in next month’s local elections.

In a recent appearance on his YouTube channel, Navalny spoke excitedly of how successful strikes by key workers in Belarus had forced authorities to start engaging with protesters. Video clips of Belarusian workers declaring they had voted for the opposition accompanying his commentary were labelled “Russia of the future”.

Activists believe they may face a Belarusian scenario when Putin comes up for re-election in 2024 after he successfully got the constitution changed to allow him to run again for president twice.

“In today’s Belarus we can see ourselves in the near future,” said opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov. “The opposition candidate gets 80% and the dictator is struggling to get 10%, but the election commission simply swaps the results.”

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