Alexey Navalny, during his trial in Moscow on February 20, 2021. – Alexander Zemlianichenko / AP / SIPA
Doctors close to Alexeï Navalny are sounding the alarm. Sick and on hunger strike in his prison, the main critic of the Kremlin can now have cardiac arrest at any time according to them. They therefore demanded on Saturday to be able to see him. US President Joe Biden has also joined in concerns about the fate of the Russian opponent.
“It’s totally unfair, totally unfair”, responded the tenant of the White House to journalists who questioned him in the United States on the fate of Alexeï Navalny, referring to his “poisoning and then [sa] hunger-strike “. The opponent stopped eating on March 31 to protest his poor conditions of detention, accusing the prison administration of denying him access to a doctor and medication despite suffering from a double herniated disc according to his lawyers.
“Death by cardiac arrest”
Navalny’s personal doctor, Anastassia Vassilieva, and three other doctors including a cardiologist have requested immediate access to the detainee, according to a letter to Russian prison services and posted on Anastassia Vassilieva’s Twitter account on Saturday. According to her, the opponent has impaired kidney function and “serious heart rhythm problems can occur any minute.” On Facebook cardiologist Iarolav Achikhmine added that Alexey Navalny “must be observed in intensive care, because a fatal arrhythmia can develop at any time. Death by cardiac arrest ”.
The spokesperson for the opponent, Kira Iarmych, for his part quoted on Twitter the doctor Alexandre Poloupane, who had already treated Navalny, saying that “it is a total indication of hospitalization. If the treatment does not start, he will die in the next few days ”.
“Putin only reacts to mass protests”
Returned in January to Russia after five months of convalescence in Germany, the opponent was immediately arrested and sentenced to two and a half years in prison in an old case of fraud that he denounces as a policy. His wife Yulia, who visited him earlier this week in his penal colony, said he now weighed 76 kg, nine less since the start of his hunger strike.
Relatives of Navalny announced after his imprisonment that they wanted to organize the “biggest protest in modern Russian history” and called on the Russians to support this project by registering through a website. On Saturday, 440,000 people had done so, out of the 500,000 required by the opposition to announce the date of the demonstration. Kira Iarmych called on the opponent’s supporters to continue registering to save his life, because “Putin only reacts to mass protests”.