Russia’s poisoned Navalny discharged from hospital

THE GERMAN hospital treating Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for poisoning said his condition has improved enough for him to be released from the facility.

The Charite hospital in Berlin said yesterday that after 32 days in care, Navalny’s condition “improved sufficiently for him to be discharged from acute inpatient care.” The hospital said that Navalny had been discharged on Tuesday.

The hospital said that “based on the patient’s progress and current condition, the treating physicians believe that complete recovery is possible,” but that it’s still too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his poisoning.

Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, fell ill on a domestic flight to Moscow on Aug. 20 and brought to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk. He was transferred to Germany for treatment two days later. A German military lab later determined that the Russian politician was poisoned with Novichok, the same class of Soviet-era nerve agent that Britain said was used in 2018 on a former Russian spy and his daughter in England.

Navalny was kept in an induced coma for more than a week while being treated with an antidote. Last week the hospital in Berlin reported taking him off the ventilator as his condition improved. Navalny has since posted several photos of himself in the hospital, saying he is recovering his verbal, mental and physical abilities.

The Kremlin has repeatedly said they see no grounds for a criminal case, as Russian labs and the hospital in Omsk found no indications of poisoning. Other European labs have backed Germany’s stance that Navalny was poisoned with independent tests of their own.

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