Is Putin’s arch-enemy being slowly poisoned to death?
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, is grappling with severe stomach pain in jail that could be some sort of slow acting poison, his spokeswoman says.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny pictured standing in a cage in a Moscow court in 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
An ambulance was called for Navalny overnight on Friday to Saturday to the maximum security IK-6 penal colony at Melekhovo, about 250km east of Moscow, where he is being held, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh told Reuters.
Navalny was suffering from severe stomach pain, she said, and could not eat the prison food provided to him because it was making his pain worse and since Monday has has been banned from buying alternative food.
“He doesn’t eat anything because he is prohibited from receiving parcels with food or to buy food in the prison store and the food that is provided by the prison to him actually worsens his stomach pain,” Yarmysh said in English.
“His health is not a good condition,” she said.
“We can’t rule out the idea that he is being poisoned, not in a huge dosage as before, but in small ones so that he doesn’t die immediately but for him to suffer and to ruin his health.”
Yarmysh said there was no definitive proof of the poisoning theory but that he had never had such stomach pains before.
She said she was terrified for him because there was almost no contact with him and he was not receiving proper medical care.
When asked about claims that Navalny might be being slowly poisoned, the Kremlin said it was not following the state of his health and that it was a matter for the federal penitentiary service.
The penitentiary service, which has in the past denied allegations that its employees have mistreated Navalny and has said he has always been afforded medical treatment when needed, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Navalny, who is serving combined sentences of 11 and a half years for fraud and contempt of court on charges he says were trumped up to silence him, said via Twitter on Tuesday that he had been moved back into solitary confinement and forced to endure “extremely hellish” conditions.
Yarmysh said he had suffered similar stomach pain in January after being treated with antibiotics for a virus and had again lost a lot of weight.
The German government said on Wednesday it was very worried about Navalny’s worsening health condition.
Reuters could not independently verify the state of Navalny’s health.
