Alexei Navalny was to arrive in Berlin, Saturday, August 22 in the morning, transported in a medical plane from Omsk, in Russia. His flight took off at 8 a.m. local time and is scheduled to land in the German capital at 9 a.m. local time. The Russian opponent must then be immediately transported to the Charité hospital.
The tumultuous soap opera of its evacuation will have been a separate chapter in a story whose outcome is not yet written. Mr Navalny, 44, has been in a coma since Thursday, and his condition remains critical. His arrival in Berlin, result of a bitter battle, is however a cause of hope for those close to him, starting with his wife Yulia Navalnaïa, who accompanied him to Germany.
On the evening of Friday, after many turnovers, the hospital in Omsk finally agreed to a transfer. Then, it will have taken several hours before the plane of the German NGO Cinema for Peace takes off from the airport in the Siberian city.
Every hour counts
If the last moments before leaving Russia were so nervous, it is because every hour counts: according to Mr. Navalny’s doctors, it is as much for his survival as for the chances of establishing with certainty what happened to him. .
The involvement of the NGO Cinema for Peace as well as the choice of the Berlin Charité hospital are therefore a reminder the precedent of Piotr Verzilov, in 2018. This Pussy Riot activist, noticed two months earlier for his intrusion on the lawn during the final of the Football World Cup, fell suddenly ill on September 11, with symptoms comparable to those of Alexei Navalny. After his transfer to Germany, four days later, the doctors were able to conclude that he was poisoned, but without determining with certainty the substance used.
Concerning Alexeï Navalny, the verdict fell unexpectedly, a few tens of minutes after a contrary opinion. “We have decided not to oppose his transfer to another hospital, the one designated by his relatives”, simply told reporters Anatoly Kalinichenko, the deputy director of the Omsk hospital.
Huge relief for his loved ones
The announcement was received with immense relief by those close to Alexey Navalny present in Omsk. His spokesperson, Kira Iarmich, who was with the opponent on the plane where he felt bad, told all day the desperate attempts to obtain this authorization, since the letter sent by Yulia Navalnaïa to Vladimir Putin, down to his own photographs of the dilapidated toilet at Omsk hospital, intended to prove conditions weren’t there “As good” than in Berlin, as the doctors claimed.
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