Navalny's office thanks Merkel for his flight to Berlin

The chief of Staff of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her country's government for helping to transport the seriously ill politician from Omsk to Berlin.

Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, was taken ill on a flight to Moscow from Siberia on Thursday.

He was admitted to an intensive care unit in the Siberian city of Omsk following a suspected poisoning that his supporters believe was engineered by the Kremlin.

A plane with German specialists and equipment necessary to transfer Navalny to a top clinic in Berlin landed at Omsk airport on Friday morning. But doctors at the hospital said his condition was too unstable to transport him.

The Omsk medical team relented only after a charity that had organized the medevac plane revealed that the German doctors examined the politician and said he was fit to be transported.

In a statement published on Facebook, Volkov said that Navalny's arrival to Berlin is an important stage which "just yesterday morning seemed to be almost impossible".

Volkov points out that the flight was paid by Russian businessman and founder of telecommunications company VimpelCom Dmitri Zimin.

Leonid Volkov thanked all people who actively supported Navalny's medical evacuation.