CONCERN GROW OVER RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER NAVALNY’S HEALTH

Sat 27 March 2021:

Navalny, 44, is currently incarcerated in Correctional Colony No. 2, about 100 kilometers from Moscow. The prison is known as one of the toughest penitentiaries in Russia.

In a message posted on his Instagram account on March 26, Navalny also said he had been warned by past prominent prisoners that getting sick in prison was potentially fatal.

“Once Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who served 10 years in prison, told me: The main thing is not to get sick there,” the post said, referring to the owner of the former oil giant Yukos who spent a decade behind bars after being convicted in two controversial cases.

“Nobody will treat you. If you get seriously ill, you will die,” he quoted Khodorkovsky as telling him.

The United States and the European Union have reiterated their calls for Russia to immediately release Aleksei Navalny after the jailed opposition politician said he was suffering from severe back pains and that “nothing” was being done by prison authorities to solve the problem.

Meanwhile Berlin is concerned over reports of convicted Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s worsening health conditions and is awaiting his release, German Foreign Office spokeswoman Andrea Sasse said at the Friday briefing.

On Wednesday, Navalny’s team reported a “sharp deterioration” in Navalny’s health, saying he suffered from “severe back pain” and foot numbness.

“We are aware of these reports and are greatly concerned. We have repeatedly stated our expectations regarding the Navalny case. The federal government expects Navalny to be released.

This position remains unchanged, and we clearly share it with Russia,” Sasse told the press.

However, spokeswoman did not clarify whether the German Foreign Ministry would invite Sergey Nechaev, Russian Ambassador to Berlin, to have a conversation regarding the matter.

Earlier, Nabila Massrali, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, issued a similar call, saying Russian authorities “must give @navalny access to medical care & give his lawyers access to him.”

The Kremlin foe’s condition became an issue on March 24 after his allies said they were concerned over his deteriorating health and called on prison authorities to clarify his condition.

On March 25, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, issued a plea to the Kremlin to free her husband so that he could be treated by doctors “he trusts” and called his imprisonment the president’s “personal revenge.”

The same day, Navalny’s lawyers were finally able to see him and reported the anti-corruption campaigner was in an “extremely unfavorable” condition, suffering from back pain and issues with his right leg that has made it “practically nonfunctional.”

The message on Instagram said that “getting out of bed is hard and very painful” but that “a week ago, the prison doctor examined me and prescribed two tablets of ibuprofen [a day], but I still don’t know the diagnosis.”

“Apparently a nerve was pinched from constantly sitting in police wagons and in ‘pencil cases’ crookedly,” he said in reference to the cramped cages defendants are placed in during court hearings.

President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic joked that he did not want to “part with” his right leg and quipped about becoming a one-legged pirate.

Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport in January immediately upon returning from Berlin, where he was recovering from what several Western laboratories determined was a poisoning attempt using a Novichok-type nerve agent that saw him fall seriously ill on a flight in Siberia in August 2020.

Navalny has said the assassination attempt was ordered by Putin — an allegation rejected by the Kremlin.

A Moscow court in February ruled that while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an older embezzlement case that is widely considered to be politically motivated.

His suspended 3 1/2-year sentence was converted into jail time, though the court reduced that amount to 2 1/2 years for time already served in detention.