Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is ill. He lost more than eight kilos in fifteen days and last Saturday the ambulance had to be called for him because he was suffering from severe stomach cramps. The vice president of Navalny’s anti-corruption organization, Anna Veduta, shared with the AP news agency on Wednesday her suspicions that the 46-year-old opposition leader is regularly administered small doses of poison through the unidentifiable pills he has to swallow.
In the penal camp, where he is serving a nine-year prison sentence for “fraud and contempt of court”, Navalny is placed in a cramped solitary cell at every turn. Again, he spends his days solitary, his spokesperson tells AP. Navalny announced via Twitter on Tuesday that he must remain in solitary confinement for fifteen days from last Monday. He does not know what is wrong with him: he did not receive a diagnosis on Saturday.
It is not the first time that those around Russia’s main opposition figure have claimed that his health has been deliberately compromised by the Russian authorities. In 2021, things also suddenly went bad for him and his allies feared for his life. It then took a long time before he received proper medical attention, after which he went on a hunger strike. In 2020 he was poisoned once before, according to research collective Bellingcat by the Russian intelligence and security service FSB.
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