Russian doctors refuse the evacuation of opponent Alexei Navalny abroad

The medical evacuation abroad of the main Russian opponent, Alexeï Navalny, was blocked on Friday August 21 by doctors from the Siberian hospital in Omsk. A decision that triggered the anger of Navalny's team, who fear more and more for the life of the opponent placed in intensive care after a suspected poisoning.

"The chief doctor announced that Navalny was not transportable. His condition is unstable," spokeswoman for the opponent Kira Larmych said on Twitter, saying that it would be "deadly dangerous to leave him in hospital unequipped in Omsk, with a diagnosis still pending ".

According to her, the decision of the opponent's relatives is not sufficient to trigger his transfer to be treated abroad, the doctors refusing to do so.

The opponent's right-hand man, Leonid Volkov, denounced a "political decision and not a medical one". "They are waiting for the toxins to come out and stop being detected in the body. There is no diagnosis or analysis. Alexeï's life is in great danger," he wrote on Twitter.

Doctors at the Omsk hospital confirm their refusal to transfer Navalny abroad, considered "non-transportable". His personal physicians dispute this point. We will probably never know the precise diagnosis, the toxin ingested. Navalny is still in a coma https://t.co/mzGpdDLfM1

Alexandre Murakhovsky, the doctor who heads the medical team treating Alexeï Navalny, replied that the transfer of his patient could be fatal, and that it was therefore necessary to stabilize his condition before a possible evacuation. According to him, Navalny's condition has improved slightly while remaining very unstable.

Refusing to answer questions on a possible confirmation of a poisoning attempt against Alexeï Navalny, he however specified that five diagnoses were possible and that all the results of the tests carried out would be available within two days.

"Transfer it ASAP!"

Alexei Navalny, one of the fiercest critics of the Kremlin, was traveling from Tomsk to Moscow by plane when he became unwell. The aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Omsk, Western Siberia.

The opponent was admitted to hospital there, placed in intensive care and connected to a ventilator. His allies said they believed he was the victim of "intentional poisoning".

France and Germany offered, Thursday, "all medical aid", while a medical plane was chartered overnight from Germany by an NGO with the objective of repatriating Alexeï Navalny there.

"It is clearly safer on board a modern plane than in the hospital in Omsk, transfer it as quickly as possible", pleaded Leonid Volkov.

Main opponent of the Kremlin, whose publications denouncing the corruption of Russian elites are widely shared on social networks, Alexeï Navalny has already been the victim of physical attacks in the past. His organization and supporters are regularly subjected to pressure and legal proceedings.

With AFP and Reuters

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