Alexey Navalny, a leading Russian opposition figure, is struggling with stomach problems in prison, and members of his staff fear he may have been poisoned again.
Navalny has lost 8 kg over the past 15 days in his isolated cell, spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said in a Twitter post on Tuesday.
“The lawyer says that an ambulance was called to Alexey Navalny on the night of Friday to Saturday because of a sharp pain in the stomach. Nobody is treating him and they don’t even tell him the diagnosis,” Yarmysh said.
“We do not rule out that all this time in prison he could have been poisoned with something that caused his health to deteriorate slowly but steadily,” he added.
Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said his team would order toxicology and radiology tests.
“This may sound like nonsense and paranoia to someone else, but not to Navalny after Novichok,” said Kobzev.
Novichok is the nerve agent that was used to poison Navalny in 2020, according to the German government, an act it and Western officials blame on the Kremlin.
After recovering, just a few months later Navalny returned to Russia, where he was detained.
Navalny faces additional challenges in prison, including threats from fellow inmates, according to Yarmysh and Kobzev, who appealed to the public to help fight for his release.
Navalny is Russia’s best-known opposition politician. Even behind bars, their Instagram and Twitter accounts maintain their attacks on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The investigative journalist Christo Grozev, who worked on the documentary “Navalny”, from CNN said he believes Putin has “motivation” to poison Navalny.
“I cannot exclude that there is motivation for this. We know that Navalny was definitely poisoned with Novichok by none other than the state of Russia. We know that he returned to Russia against Putin’s will,” Grozev told Erica Hill of the CNN .
“And of course, now from inside prison, Navalny continues to ridicule Putin in the war effort for being such a vocal opponent of war. So of course there is the motivation,” he said.
Source: CNN Brasil
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