Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Putin foe evacuated to Germany
Possibly poisoned, Navalny being treated at Berlin hospital
BERLIN — Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, arrived in Berlin for treatment Saturday after falling into a coma in Siberia in what his family and supporters suspect was a deliberate poisoning weeks before nationwide local elections.
Navalny was admitted to Charite, one of Germany’s leading medical research facilities, where he will undergo “extensive diagnostic tests,” the hospital said in a statement after the plane transporting him touched down. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance, arriving more than 48 hours after he lost consciousness and slipped into a coma.
“Patient stable, mission accomplished,” said Jaka Bizilj, who runs the foundation that had organized the air transport at the urging of Navalny’s friends and family. He had also lobbied political and business leaders in Germany with strong ties to Russia to secure Navalny’s transfer.
Navalny fell ill Thursday shortly after the Mos- cow-bound flight he had boarded took off. Throughout his Saturday morning journey from the Siberian city of Omsk to Berlin, he remained in stable condition, said Bizilj, who founded and runs the Cinema for Peace foundation.
The arrival in Germany of Navalny, who is the most persistent critic of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, comes as Moscow is watching popular uprisings in neighboring Belarus as well as anti-government protests in Khabarovsk in Russia’s’ Far East, weeks before Russians are scheduled to elect local leaders in municipal elections Sept. 13.
Navalny had been meeting with opposition candidates in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city, promoting a strategy he called “smart voting” that encourages multiple small opposition movements to back a single candidate on a local ballot.
The strategy seeks to chip away at the dominance of the pro-government party, United Russia, on city councils and in regional parliaments.
Putin’s popularity has been in decline since about 2018 as nationalist fervor over the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine faded and the economy slumped under sanctions and then coronavirus lockdowns, creating an opening for this tactic.
Upon landing in Berlin after roughly seven hours en route, Navalny’s plane was met by an ambulance that brought him, under police escort, to the hospital, where doctors immediately began extensive testing to determine what may have caused his illness and how to proceed with treatment.
“After completion of the examinations and after consultation with the family, the attending doctors will comment on the illness and further treatment steps,” Manuela Zingl, a spokeswoman for Charite, said in a statement. “The examinations will take some time. We therefore ask for your patience; we will inform you as soon as we have any findings.”
Navalny had collapsed in agonizing pain Thursday shortly after takeoff on what was to have been a 2,000-mile flight to Moscow. His family suspects that poison may have been added to a cup of tea he drank in the airport hours before boarding that flight.
His evacuation came only after hours of wrangling with Russian doctors and officials, who had insisted that a transfer to Germany would endanger Navalny’s health. But a team of German doctors, who had arrived in Omsk on the air ambulance, were granted access to Navalny on Friday afternoon and said unequivocally that it was safe for him to travel. He was then cleared to board the plane.
Navalny’s wife, Yulia, who had sent Putin a letter Friday requesting permission to evacuate her husband, was allowed to accompany him to Germany.
The Russian authorities have consistently denied there is any evidence of poisoning. At a news conference Friday, Dr. Aleksandr Murakhovsky said tests for toxins in Navalny’s blood were all negative. He said Navalny had suffered an “imbalance in carbohydrates, that is, metabolic disorder,” possibly caused by low blood sugar.
Navalny’s wife and personal doctor quickly dismissed that account, saying the idea that an otherwise healthy 44-year-old would collapse into a dayslong coma from low blood sugar was ridiculous.
If Navalny is found to have ingested dangerous toxins, he would become the latest prominent Kremlin critic to have been the victim of a poisoning.
A fatal dose of the radioactive substance polonium 210 was used against Alexander Litvinenko, and a nerve agent called Novichok against Sergei Skripal, both former Russian intelligence officers attacked in England. The former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fell ill from a dioxin, and unknown toxins were used against Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian journalist who lobbied in the West for sanctions against Kremlin operatives.