Putin critic in grave condition; poison in tea suspected

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was unconscious in intensive care after a suspected poisoning, his spokeswoman said Thursday.

The anti-corruption campaigner and staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, Kira Yarmysh said on Twitter.

Yarmysh said Navalny drank tea that appeared to have been laced with a toxin. Russia’s state news agency, Tass, confirmed Navalny is being treated for

Navalny poisoning at a hospital in Omsk, where his plane made an emergency landing. Citing the chief doctor at the hospital, Tass said Navalny was in grave condition.

He was placed on a ventilator.

Navalny, 44, is the effective face of political opposition to Putin and he has been in and out of jail for his activism against Russia’s longtime leader.

Last year, Navalny claimed he was poisoned while serving a short jail sentence. Doctors said he had a severe allergic reaction to an unknown substance. He was left partially blind in one eye after a pro-Putin activist attacked him with a chemical in 2017.

Navalny attempted to run against Putin in Russia’s 2018 presidential elections but was barred from participating over a fraud conviction he alleged was politically motivated.

Many of Putin’s opponents – journalists, politicians, former associates – have died in suspicious circumstances.

The British government concluded that Russian military agents were behind the poisoning attack in 2018 in Britain against former Moscow spy Sergei

Skripal and his daughter Julia, in which Novichok, a highly toxic, military-grade nerve agent, was used.

British authorities concluded that Alexander Litvinenko, another former Russian spy, was poisoned to death at the Kremlin’s behest in London in 2006.

Navalny led nationwide protests against Putin, whose administration he described as full of “crooks and thieves.”

The Kremlin denies using violence for political ends.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that law enforcement would launch an investigation if the poisoning is confirmed.