Tests show Kremlin critic and Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, according to doctors at the German hospital where he is being treated.
Navalny, a well-known detractor of Russian President Vladimir Putin, arrived in Berlin on Saturday. He remains in an artificial coma in the intensive care unit even though “there is no acute danger to his life,” according to a statement from Berlin’s Charite Hospital on Monday.
“He was poisoned by a substance from the group of active ingredients called cholinesterase inhibitors,” the hospital said. The exact substance that poisoned Navalny is unknown, and the hospital said another “broad analysis” is being conducted.
Doctors are using atropine, which is commonly used for nerve gas and pesticide poisonings, to treat Navalny.
Navalny’s flight from Tomsk to Moscow on Thursday performed an emergency landing after he began moaning in pain and fell unconscious. His spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, claimed that Navalny was poisoned from the tea he drank at the airport. Doctors in Russia, who said they found no evidence of poison, initially blocked his travel out of the country but gave him the go-ahead on Friday.
The 44-year-old’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said that he would not receive proper treatment in Russia. Navalny’s team also said he might have been poisoned last year.
“A year ago, he was poisoned in a prison, and I am sure the same thing happened here,” Yarmysh told a Russian radio station. “It’s different symptoms, obviously a different toxin, but obviously, this was done to him intentionally.”
