Russia’s prison service said Monday it was transferring troubled dissident Alexei Navalny, who is on 20th day of hunger strike, in a prison hospital, amid serious fears for his health.
The decision comes a day after the U.S. threatened the Kremlin with “consequences” if President Vladimir Putin’s main national opponent dies behind bars, according to Agence França-Presse.
Navalny’s private doctors warned over the weekend that he could die at any time.
Russian prison authorities, who have banned him from visiting the 44-year-old medical team himself, said his doctors had decided to move him to a medical center on the premises of another penal colony in Vladimir, a city located in Vladimir. about 110 kilometers east of Moscow. .
But they insisted the Kremlin critic’s condition was “satisfactory,” adding that he was taking vitamin supplements as part of his medical treatment.
Navalny’s doctor, Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, said on Saturday that the results of tests he received from Navalny’s family show him strongly elevated levels of potassium, which can cause cardiac arrest, and elevated levels of creatinine that indicate deterioration. of the kidneys.
“Our patient could die at any time,” he wrote on Facebook.
Navalny went on a hunger strike to protest his refusal to let his doctors visit when he began to suffer from severe back pain and a loss of sensation in his legs.
Russia’s state penitentiary service, FSIN, has said Navalny was receiving all the medical help he needed.
His allies convened a national rally on Wednesday, the same day Putin is scheduled to deliver his annual speech on the state of the nation.
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers are assessing the bloc’s strategy towards Russia amid Navalny’s weakening health and following the military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has already attacked the Kremlin over his arrest and treatment of Navalny on Sunday and insisted he should have access to trusted doctors.
“All in all, relations with Russia are not improving, but on the contrary, tension is rising on different fronts,” Borrell said in a statement.
Navalny was arrested in January on his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent blaming the Kremlin, allegations that Russian officials have rejected.
His arrest sparked widespread protests throughout Russia.
A court has ordered Navalny to serve 2 1/2 years in the slammer for a 2014 embezzlement conviction that said it was fabricated and that the European Court of Human Rights considered it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”
Last month, the politician was transferred to a notorious penal colony east of Moscow.
With publishing cables