The German hospital that treats Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday (Sept. 7) that Navalny’s condition is improving and that he is now out of an artificial coma and responding.
Navalny, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was transferred by plane to Berlin on Aug. 22, two days after he fell ill during a domestic Russian flight. German chemical weapons experts said tests showed he had been poisoned by the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. Russia rejects the claim.
Berlin’s Charité Hospital said the 44-year-old Navalny’s condition had improved, allowing doctors to end the drug-induced coma he had been in and gradually take him off a mechanical ventilator.
The hospital statement said that Navalny was responding to speech, but that “the long-term consequences of severe intoxication cannot yet be ruled out.
Germany said last week that laboratory tests “prove beyond any doubt” that Navalny was poisoned with the chemical nerve agent Novichok. British authorities determined in 2018 that former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were also poisoned with Novichok in England.
Germany demanded an explanation from Moscow for Navalny’s poisoning, but the Kremlin rejected claims by Navalny’s allies that the Russian government was behind the poisoning, calling it “hollow noise.
As the Navalny affair continues to unfold, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office signaled Monday that she may reconsider her position in support of a controversial German-Russian gas pipeline project that would allow Russia to bypass Ukraine. The project would allow Russia to bypass Ukraine and send natural gas to Germany via the seabed of the Baltic Sea.
Merkel had previously insisted that the Navalny affair be “decoupled” from the pipeline project.
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