Putin enemy in fight for life after ‘poison put in his cup of tea’
Plane in emergency landing as activist collapses in agony
A RUSSIAN opposition leader at war with Vladimir Putin’s “crooked” regime is in a coma, battling to survive a suspected poisoning.
Alexei Navalny, 44, was photographed drinking tea in an airport cafe on Wednesday morning and his supporters suspect his drink was laced with poison as, shortly after, he became ill during his flight from Tomsk in Siberia to Moscow.
Horrific footage appears to show him screaming in agony and struggling to breathe on the plane.
The pilot made an emergency landing in Omsk and Navalny was pictured being taken by stretcher from the plane. He was last night in a coma in intensive care and had been put on a ventilator.
Pavel Lebedev, a passenger on the Moscow flight, said: “At the start of the flight he went to the toilet and didn’t come back. He started feeling really sick. They struggled to bring him round and he was screaming in pain.”
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said: “We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea. It was the only thing he drank in the morning.
“The doctors say that the toxin was absorbed more quickly because of the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious.”
Yarmysh said hospital officials had initially refused to let Navalny’s wife Yulia and his personal doctor visit because the patient, who is unconscious, had not given his permission. Staff had refused to show them the results of tests that would show if he had been poisoned. Regional health ministry spokeswoman, Tatyana Shakirova, said: “Doctors are doing everything possible to stabilise his condition. “The poisoning version is one of several versions being considered. It’s not possible now to say what the reason was.”
Russia holds regional elections next month and Navalny and his allies had been working to increase support.
The anti-corruption activist, who dubbed Putin’s United Russia “the party of crooks and thieves”, was jailed in 2011 after vote-rigging protests and again in 2013 on trumped-up fraud charges.
He tried to stand for president in 2018 but was barred due to his convictions.
During a 30-day jail sentence imposed in July 2019 for calling for unauthorised protests, Navalny became ill. Both he and his doctor suspected poison.
A Kremlin spokesman last night said doctors were doing all they could to save Navalny, adding that they wished him a “speedy recovery”.