Navalny is out of hospital
BERLIN — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been released from a Berlin hospital after more than a month’s treatment for poisoning, with doctors now believing he could see a “complete recovery” from the Soviet-era nerve agent, the hospital saidwednesday.
Navalny spent 32 days at Berlin’s Charite hospital, 24 of them in intensive care, before doctors deemed his “condition had improved sufficiently for him to be discharged from acute inpatient care.” He will remain in Germany to continue his rehabilitation, his team said.
Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is Putin’s most visible opponent, was flown to Germany two days after falling ill Aug. 20 on a domestic flight in Russia. He spent those two days in a coma in a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk, where Russian doctors said they found no trace of any poisoning.
German chemical weapons experts have determined hewas poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok — findings corroborated by labs in France and Sweden.
As hewas released Tuesday, the 44-year-old displayed his characteristic sarcastic sense of humor.
In an Instagram post, he laughed off a report in the French newspaper Le Monde saying Russian President Valdimir Putin suggested to French President Emmanuelmacron in a call thatnavalny “could have taken the poison himself.”
“Good theory, I believe it deserves the most careful attention,” Navalny wrote in Russian. “Cooked Novichok in the kitchen. Took a sip from a flask on the plane. Fell into a coma.”
He wryly wrote that the “ultimate aim of my cunning plan” must have been to die in Siberia, where the cause of deathwould be “lived long enough.”
Kremlin spokesmandmitrypeskov onwednesday said the report about Putin’s conversation with Macron was “inaccurate in its reportedwording,” but he refused to elaborate as to which part was inaccurate. Macron’s office refused to comment on the report.