Navalny (44) is in a coma and is connected to a respirator at a hospital in the city of Omsk in Siberia after he became acutely ill on Thursday morning on a plane on its way to Moscow.
His staff is convinced that he is poisoned, but the doctors have not yet made a diagnosis.
A plane from Germany is on its way to Omsk to pick up Navalny. His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh says it will be a threat to Navalny’s life to refuse to move him.
Both France and Germany have offered to help Navalny. At 3 o’clock on Friday night, an ambulance plane took off from Nuremberg in Germany, according to the newspaper Bild.
The plan is to bring Navalny to the reputable Charité Hospital in Berlin and give him treatment there.
– Do everything they can
An Omsk chief physician, Anatoly Kalinichenko, has previously said that doctors are doing everything they can to save the well-known activist, corruption hunter and blogger, who has long been one of President Vladimir Putin’s main critics. He has also said that Navalny is fighting for his life.
The condition he is described as severe and stable.
According to Navalny’s team, the hospital in Omsk is poorly equipped, and his doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva says she has asked the Kremlin for help in getting him to a European hospital.
At the same time, Jarmysh accuses Putin of being responsible for the alleged poisoning.
– Whether he gave the order personally or not, the responsibility lies with him, she says.
Navalny’s wife Julia has now traveled to Omsk, located about 220 km east of Moscow.
Police investigators are also at the hospital, and journalists say they have seen agents from the security service FSB there.
Many enemies
Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaja says Navalny has “hundreds of enemies, including some stubborn people.” She refers in particular to his fight against corruption, which has received a great deal of attention on social media.
Navanyj believes that the Russian power apparatus is permeated by corruption, and he has posted a number of concrete accusations on YouTube and Twitter, where he has millions of followers.
Amnesty International has asked Russia to launch a rapid and independent investigation into what happened.
In Moscow, several say they believe Navalny was deliberately poisoned as a result of his political views.
– I think this was a deliberate attempt to take his life because he has fought so hard against the government lately, says the 18-year-old student Jaroslav Lyangasov.
Navalny’s spokeswoman said he must have gotten married when he drank a cup of tea at the airport in the Siberian city of Tomsk before leaving. This is the only thing he should have drunk on Thursday morning.
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