Germany calls on Russia to allow urgent medical care to Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny

Germany on Friday asked Russia to provide swift medical care to the jailed Kremlin critic and political rival of President Vladimir Putin Alexei Navalny. The opposition leader of Russia had earlier complained of being denied access to hospital treatment by prison officials, adding that he was suffering from flu-like symptoms. Earlier this week, Navalny's wife Yulia Navalnya made appeals to the Russian prison staff to let her husband seek basic medicines to ease his symptoms. 

Navalny 'in urgent need of medical assistance': Berlin

A German government spokesperson on Thursday demanded that Moscow should provide medical care to the 46-year-old. In the social media update that he posted via his lawyers this week, Navalny accused Russian authorities of deliberately positioning a sick man next to him as a "bacteriological weapon". Navalny is currently serving 11 1/2 years in jail on charges of fraud and contempt of court and is kept in a maximum-security prison outside Moscow. He was detained in January 2021 shortly after he returned to Moscow from Germany, after recovering from being poisoned with the Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent. Berlin on Thursday called for the Russian Federation to release Navalny, saying that his imprisonment was “politically motivated”.

Navalny “is in urgent need of medical assistance as numerous Russian doctors have pointed out. We call on the Russian authorities to provide this immediately and completely,” government spokeswoman Christiane Hoffmann said in a statement.

Earlier yesterday, over 200 Russian doctors signed a petition to President Vladimir Putin urging him to stop the cruelty being done against Russia’s opposition leader. The doctors in the letter mentioned that they cannot see Navalny being abused or harshly treated by prison officials, and they cannot silently watch Navalny’s health being "deliberately harmed." "The detention conditions and the appearance of Aleksei Navalny make us greatly concerned for his life and health," said the letter, published by Aleksei Polupan, an anesthesiologist, and Aleksandr Vanyukov, a surgeon. "From the medical point of view, it is clear that Aleksei is not receiving sufficient medical help," the letter, cited by NYTimes read. 

The doctors through the letter have demanded that the opposition politician be given a "full examination" and access to proper medical treatment. This development came after Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said on Monday he was experiencing fever, chills, and a cough. On Monday, Navalny reportedly said that he was sent back to solitary confinement for the 10th time and this time for washing his face an hour earlier than he was actually supposed to.