Comatose Russian dissident stable upon arrival in Berlin
BERLIN — Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, in a coma after a suspected poisoning, was flown from Siberia on Saturday to Berlin for treatment by specialists at the German capital’s main hospital.
After touching down shortly at a special area of the airport used for government and military flights, Navalny was taken by ambulance to the downtown campus of Berlin’s Charite hospital.
“He survived the flight and he’s stable,” said Jaka Bizilj of the German organization Cinema For Peace, which organized the flight.
The hospital later issued a statement saying extensive tests were being carried out on Navalny, and doctors would not comment on his illness or treatment until those were completed.
Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city of Omsk on Thursday. His supporters believe that tea he drank was laced with poison — and the Kremlin is behind his illness and the delay in transferring him to Germany.
The Omsk regional health ministry on Saturday issued a statement saying that, so far, tests done on Navalny while he was there had found no poisons.
“Tests were immediately taken for the presence of toxic substances in the body,” the ministry said. “Already today we can say that oxybutyrates, barbiturates, strychnine, convulsive or synthetic poisons have not been found. Alcohol and caffeine were found in the urine.”
The most prominent member of Russia’s opposition, Navalny campaigned to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential election but was barred from running. Since then, he has been promoting opposition candidates in regional elections, challenging members of the ruling party, United Russia.
His Foundation for Fighting Corruption has been exposing graft among government officials, including some at the highest level. But he had to shut the foundation last month after a financially devastating lawsuit from a businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.
Navalny fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday and was taken to the hospital after the plane made an emergency landing. His team made arrangements to transfer him to Charite, a clinic in Berlin that has a history of treating famous foreign leaders and dissidents.
The Omsk hospital’s chief doctor, Alexander Murakhovsky, said in a video by news outlet NGS55 that a metabolic disorder was the most likely diagnosis.
Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, who has been Navalny’s doctor since 2013, said the politician has always been in good health, regularly went for medical checkups and didn’t have any underlying illnesses that could have triggered his condition.
Western toxicology experts expressed doubts that a poisoning could have been ruled out so quickly.
“It takes a while to rule things out. And particularly if something is highly toxic — it will be there in very low concentrations, and many screening tests would just not pick that substance up,” said Alastair Hay, an emeritus professor and toxicology expert from the school of medicine at the University of Leeds.