Russia’s Navalny ‘has mystery illness which may be slow poisoning’

Russia’s most prominent opposition leader is suffering ‘acute pain’, which supporters fear may be due to poison

Russian oppposition leader Alexei Navalny is escorted out of a police station in 2021, after being sentenced to jail. (AFP via Getty Images)

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is fighting a mystery stomach problem which may be the result of slow poisoning, his spokesperson has claimed.

The high-profile Putin critic has reportedly lost 8kg in just over two weeks, and last week an ambulance was called to treat him at the maximum security penal colony in Melekhovo, 250km east of Moscow.

His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said an unknown stomach complaint had flared up on Friday and claimed that prison doctors had treated him in the past by injecting him with medicine which they had refused to identify.

“We do not rule out that at this very time Alexei Navalny is being slowly poisoned, being killed slowly so that it attracts less attention,” she said. “He is being held in a punishment cell with acute pain without medical help”.

Ms Yarmysh said that Mr Navalny had suffered similar stomach pain in January and had again lost a lot of weight.

When asked about the claims, the Kremlin said that it was not following the state of his health, and that it was a matter for the federal penitentiary service. The penitentiary service did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though it has previously denied allegations that prison employees have mistreated Mr Navalny.

His lawyer Vadim Kobzev said that he is planning to request toxicological and radiological tests.

“This may sound like nonsense and paranoia to someone else, but not to Navalny after Novichok,” said Ms Kobzev on Twitter.

Mr Navalny was previously poisoned with the Russian nerve agent Novichok - made famous in the UK following the 2014 Salisbury poisonings - while travelling on a plane in Siberia in 2020.

After recovering in Germany, Mr Navalny returned to Russia in 2021, where he was arrested on arrival. He is currently serving a 12-and-a-half-year prison sentence for fraud and contempt of court on charges, which his supporters claim are trumped up.

A Yale-educated lawyer, Mr Navalny became famous a decade ago for repeatedly calling out Russia’s political elite, and accusing them of corruption on a vast scale.

He won 27 per cent of the vote in the 2014 Moscow mayoral election, losing to a Putin appointee, and led the pro-democracy opposition party Russia of the Future between 2018 and 2021.

Russian authorities claim that Mr Navalny and his supporters are extremists with links to the CIA. His political movement has been outlawed, and many of his supporters have been forced to flee from Russia.

Even from prison, Mr Navalny has maintained his social media accounts, with his team uploading posts based on notes that he passes them from prison.

Following the latest news of Mr Navalny’s ill health, the German government said it was very worried about him.

Navalny spokesperson Yarmysh said that medicine sent to his prison by his mother had not been collected by prison officials from the post office.

“Abusing Alexei’s health is a regular practice [of the prison]”, said Yarmysh. “All we can do right now [to help him] is to talk about Alexei everywhere”.