Condition of opposition leader Navalny improves
BERLIN — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s health has improved so that he is now able to leave his bed briefly, the Berlin hospital treating him said Monday, while Germany announced that French and Swedish labs have confirmed its findings that he was poisoned with the Sovietera nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny, the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was flown to Germany two days after falling ill on Aug. 20 on a domestic flight in Russia and is being treated at Berlin’s Charite hospital. Berlin has demanded that Russia investigate the case.
Charite said Navalny has now been “successfully removed from mechanical ventilation.”
“He is currently undergoing mobilization and is able to leave his bed for short periods of time,” it added.
Monday’s statement didn’t address the longterm outlook for the 44yearold politician and anticorruption investigator. Doctors have cautioned that even though Navalny is recovering well, longterm health problems from the poisoning cannot be ruled out.
The Kremlin has bristled at calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders for Russia to answer questions about the poisoning, denying any official involvement and accusing the West of trying to smear Moscow.
Earlier Monday, the German government said tests by labs in France and Sweden had backed up earlier findings by a German military lab that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, the same class of material that British authorities said was used on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England, in 2018.
The Haguebased Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also is taking steps to have samples from Navalny tested at its reference laboratories,
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
He said Germany had asked France and Sweden for an independent examination of the findings.
“In efforts separate from the OPCW examinations, which are still ongoing, three laboratories have meanwhile independently of one another presented proof that Mr. Navalny’s poisoning was caused by a nerve agent from the Novichok group,” Seibert said.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his “deep concern over the criminal act” that targeted Navalny during a phone call with Putin on Monday, Macron’s office said.
Navalny was kept in an induced coma for more than a week as he was treated with an antidote before hospital officials said a week ago that his condition had improved enough for him to be brought out of it.