Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been hospitalized after he was allegedly poisoned.
Navalny, 44, is unconscious and was placed on a ventilator in the intensive care unit shortly after he started feeling sick during a flight from Tomsk, a city in Siberia, to Moscow early Thursday, according to NBC News. He is in stable but grave condition, according to Anatoly Kalinichenko, a representative from the hospital.
“The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. Alexei has a toxic poisoning,” Kira Yarmysh, a spokesperson for Navalny, tweeted. She claimed he was intentionally poisoned via a cup of tea that he got in the airport but did not speculate as to who was behind the incident.
Kalinichenko noted that “doctors are really dealing with saving his life right now” and said that they’re still investigating what could have led to Navalny’s sudden illness.
“Doctors are really dealing with saving his life right now,” Kalinichenko added at a later briefing with reporters.
Navalny’s team has also suspected that he was 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.”
Other opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin have been targeted in apparent poisonings or died in mysterious ways.
