Siberian doctors claim they saved Navalny's life as Germany says poisoning 'likely'

The doctors of the Siberian hospital, where Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was brought for treatment for the first time, said that they saved the life of the anti-corruption campaigner amid accusations of collusion with Kremlin. Head doctor Alexander Murakhovsky told reporters at a news conference that they saved Navalny’s life but maintained that no traces of poison were found, as alleged, in the patient’s body.

Kira Yarmysh, the press secretary of the 44-year-old politician, claimed that a hospital’s spokesperson had informed about the presence of traces of a deadly poison in patient’s body but now the doctors have taken a U-turn. Georgy Alburov, a researcher at Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that the only reason not to let Navalny go on a plane with specialists is to deny him high-quality medical support and wait until the traces of the poison disappear.

After Navalny was finally airlifted to Berlin, Yarmysh said that Navalny’s family has not authorised anyone to make statements in the press about his health on their behalf. However, the German government, in sharp contrast, said it is “fairly likely” that the staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin was poisoned. 

“We are dealing with a patient who it is fairly likely was poisoned,” the spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a press conference in Berlin.

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'Poison attack'

Navalny will survive the health scare after falling critically ill due to suspected poisoning, said the founder of the NGO, which sent an air ambulance to Siberia, told a German tabloid. Jaka Bizilj, founder of the Cinema for Peace Foundation, said that though the Russian opposition leader will survive the “poison attack”, he won’t be able to get to political work for months, highlighting the "worrying overall situation."

Navalny has been jailed several times over various charges including embezzlement and calling for unauthorised protests, which the Russian leader has denounced as politically motivated. He strongly criticised the sweeping constitutional reforms introduced by Putin, giving himself an option to stay in power beyond term limits. If Germany confirms poisoning as that cause of his critical health condition, the previous attacks on Putin’s high-profile critics would be once again thrown into the spotlight.

Read: Russian Doctors Find 'no Traces Of Poison' In Putin Critic Alexei Navalny's Blood

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