Navalny may be poisoned again outside

Navalny is being held in the maximum security penal colony IK-6 in Melikhovo, about 250km east of Moscow. According to his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, an ambulance was called at night from Friday to Saturday because he was suffering from severe stomach pain and was unable to eat, which exacerbated his pain.

Since Monday, he is no longer allowed to buy other foods himself. The medicines his mother sends him are not picked up at the post office by prison officials, but simply returned.

Yarmesh said, “He does not eat anything because it is forbidden to receive food parcels or buy food from the prison store, and the food provided by the prison increases his stomach pain.” “His health is not good. We cannot rule out that he was poisoned. Not in large doses as before, but in smaller doses, so as not to die immediately, but to make him suffer and ruin his health.”

There is no conclusive evidence of poisoning, Yarmysh says, but Navalny had never had a stomach ache like this before, although he also experienced severe stomach pain in January after being treated with antibiotics for a virus. She fears for his health, because she rarely communicates with him and he does not receive proper medical care. He is in complete isolation and we don’t know what happens to him. I’m terrified because no one knows what’s going on.”

The Kremlin says it does not care about Navalny’s health and that this is a matter for the Federal Correction Service.

Navalny is serving a combined sentence of 11.5 years for fraud and contempt of court, but claims the charges are trumped-up to silence him. On Tuesday, he reported on Twitter that he had been placed in solitary confinement again and that he was going through “extreme hellish” conditions.

On Wednesday, the German government said it was very concerned about Navalny’s deteriorating health.

Navalny is a former lawyer who gained fame more than a decade ago for publicly criticizing Russia’s elite and President Putin, accusing them of widespread corruption. His supporters see him as a Russian version of Nelson Mandela, who will one day be released from prison to lead the country.

However, the Russian authorities consider him and his supporters extremists with links to the CIA, who want to destabilize Russia. They banned his movement, causing many of his supporters to flee abroad.

In 2020, Navalny had already survived a suspected attempt to poison him while on a trip in Siberia. According to Western Labs, he was then exposed to a nerve agent. Navalny says Russia was behind the attack, but the Kremlin denies this. After treatment in Germany, he voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021, where he was promptly arrested and imprisoned.

“He is an innocent man and he is in prison only because of Putin’s personal hatred,” Yarmysh says.