After his wife had appealed to the Russian government, critically ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been flown out of Siberia to Berlin for treatment. He had flown from Omsk, where he had been receiving treatment thus far and was taken in an ambulance aircraft to Germany. Doctors have claimed that his condition has been “very worrying”. The hospital said in a statement it would provide an update about his condition and further treatment once tests have been completed and after consulting with his family. It added this could take some time.
The air ambulance, arranged by the Cinema for Peace Foundation, flew to Berlin’s Tegel airport early on Saturday and Navalny, 44, was rushed to the Charite hospital complex.
Alexei, who has been a long time campaigner against the Russian President Vladimir Putin and his corrupt practices, had reportedly collapsed on a plane on Thursday after drinking poison-laced tea. Navalny had been exposing the Kremlin and its various scams for over a decade now, and he does, what he says is high-level graft and mobilising crowds of young protesters. He has been repeatedly detained for organising public meetings and rallies and sued over his investigations into corruption. He was barred from running in a presidential election in 2018.
Notably, two years ago, Pyotr Verzilov, another anti-Kremlin activist and a member of the Pussy Riot art collective, was treated at the Charite hospital after he was poisoned in Moscow. This is the same hospital in which Alexei had been receiving treatment.