Putin foe to be airlifted to Berlin in ‘poison’ drama

A KREMLIN critic in a coma after drinking a cup of ‘poisoned’ tea will be airlifted to Germany for treatment today.

Doctors in Siberia claimed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been left fighting for his life due to ‘low blood sugar’.

But his allies rejected the diagnosis and sought international help, saying they were being thwarted from getting to the truth behind Mr Navalny’s sudden collapse.

His wife Yulia wrote a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin, demanding he allow her husband to be flown to Berlin for treatment before lodging an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights.

After a day of negotiations, doctors at the hospital in Omsk agreed Mr Navalny could be transferred to an air ambulance waiting to take him to Germany.

Mr Navalny, 44, has been in an induced coma since falling ill on a flight from Tomsk, Siberia, to Moscow, which forced the plane to make an emergency landing on Thursday morning. The only thing he consumed that day was a cup of black tea at the airport, said his spokesman, who was travelling with him.

Doctors treating Mr Navalny said they had found ‘no trace’ of any poison. They did find industrial chemicals on his hands, hair and clothes, but were not linking them to his illness. The Kremlin said the block on Mr Navalny travelling was purely a medical decision and that he was too ill to make the journey.

But Mrs Navalnaya said the delay was to allow the poison to leave his system, telling reporters: ‘We certainly believe that it is done to make sure that a chemical substance which is in Alexei’s body will dissolve. We can not trust this hospital.’