MOSCOW (AP) – A doctor of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, says his health is deteriorating rapidly and that the Kremlin critic, 44 years old, could be on the verge of death.
Doctor Yaroslav Ashikhmin said on Saturday that the results of tests he received from Navalny’s family show him strongly elevated potassium levels, which can lead to cardiac arrest, and elevated creatinine levels indicating deterioration in the kidneys.
“Our patient could die at any time,” he said in a post on Facebook.
Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Medical Alliance union with Navalny’s support, said on Twitter that “action must be taken immediately.”
Navalny is the most visible and strong opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He has not been allowed to see his personal doctors in prison. He went on a hunger strike to protest his refusal to let them visit when he began to experience severe back pain and a loss of sensation in his legs. Russia’s state penitentiary service has said Navalny receives all the medical help he needs.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 when he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from Soviet poisoning by a nerve agent blaming the Kremlin. Russian officials have denied any involvement and have even questioned whether Navalny has been poisoned, which was confirmed by several European laboratories.
Asked about Navalny’s worsening, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters on Saturday: “It’s totally unfair and totally inappropriate. On the basis of having the poison and then going on a hunger strike. “
Navalny was ordered to serve 2 1/2 years in prison on the grounds that his long recovery in Germany violated a suspended sentence he had been given for a conviction for fraud in a case Navalny says he had a political motivation.