MOSCOW (AP) – A lawyer for jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has complained of serious back and leg pain, said on Wednesday doctors had found him with two vertebral hernias.
Vadim Kobzev told the Interfax news agency that Navalny also has a spinal cord bump and is starting to lose the feeling in his hands.
Navalny went on a hunger strike last week to protest what he called poor medical care in a Russian prison. On Tuesday, the leader of the Alliance of Physicians union, backed by Navalny, was arrested by police after trying to get into jail to talk to doctors.
Navalny, 44, is the fiercest internal opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that the Kremlin blames. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation. However, laboratories in Germany and other European countries confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
A Russian court ordered Navalny in February to serve 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the conditions of his probation, including when he was convalescing in Germany, following a 2014 embezzlement conviction. condemnation as fabricated and the European Court of Human Rights considered it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”
Navalny said Wednesday in an Instagram post that prison authorities have tried to undermine the hunger strike by allowing aromatic chicken to be cooked in their unit’s kitchen, moving away from regulations and putting candy in clothes pockets.
“Do you know what was most important in the first stage of the prison hunger strike? Check your pockets, ”he wrote.
Navalny’s imprisonment has provoked widespread criticism from the West. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Wednesday: “We urge the Russian authorities to take all necessary action to ensure their safety and health,” adding that “we consider Mr. Navalny’s prison to have exceeded charges. it is a political motivation and a grave injustice, and we are together with allies and like-minded partners in their request for their immediate release. ”
Authorities transferred Navalny last month from Moscow prison to the IK-2 penal colony in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of the Russian capital. The facilities in the city of Pokrov stand out among Russian prisons for their particularly strict prison routines, which include being vigilant for hours.
Within weeks of being jailed, Navalny said he had severe back and leg pain and was effectively sleep deprived because a guard checked him every night. He went on a hunger strike on March 31 demanding access to proper medication and a visit from his doctor.
Russia’s state penitentiary service has said Navalny receives all the medical help he needs.
Another Navalny lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, said a neurologist consulted by Navalny’s organization said the treatment prescribed in prison was ineffective.
Navalny said Monday that three of the 15 people he is staying with have been diagnosed with tuberculosis, a contagious disease that spreads through the air. He said he had a strong cough and fever with a temperature of 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 F).
On Monday, the state penitentiary service said Navalny had been the prison’s health unit after a checkpoint found him with “signs of a respiratory illness, including a high fever.”
Mikhailova said Wednesday that Navalny’s fever had subsided, but she continues to cough and weaken from the hunger strike.