After hours of back-and-forth between Russian doctors and officials, Aleksei A. Navalny was flown to Berlin, where he is being treated at a research hospital.
Russian Opposition Leader Navalny Arrives at German Hospital
Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Aleksei A. Navalny, arrived in Berlin for treatment after entering a coma in what his family and supporters suspect was a deliberate poisoning before nationwide elections.
- It’s obvious that something terrible happened. I mean, there was some silly explanations like, ‘oh, this or that or his blood pressure … ’” ”And he’s a healthy, strong man with a good constitution. The night before the attack or whatever you want to call it, he was swimming in a river.
And I mean, there’s this video that we’ve all seen from the plane where he gets this incredible pain, he’s screaming, and we got a very clear message also from the doctors that if there would have not been an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was brought to the hospital, if they would have been trying to fly on to Moscow, he would have died. So this is nothing that just comes from, I don’t know, high altitude, or a bit of blood pressure. Obviously, this was an attack on his life.
BERLIN — Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, Aleksei A. Navalny, arrived in Berlin for treatment on Saturday after falling into a coma in Siberia in what his family and supporters suspect was a deliberate poisoning weeks before nationwide local elections.
Mr. Navalny was admitted to Charité, one of Germany’s leading medical research facilities, where he will undergo “extensive diagnostic tests,” the hospital said in a statement after the plane transporting him touched down. He was then transferred to the hospital by ambulance, arriving more than 48 hours after he lost consciousness and slipped into a coma.
“Patient stable, mission accomplished,” said Jaka Bizilj, who runs the foundation that had organized the air transport at the urging of Mr. Navalny’s friends and family. He had also lobbied political and business leaders in Germany with strong ties to Russia to secure Mr. Navalny’s transfer.
Mr. Navalny became violently ill on Thursday shortly after the Moscow-bound flight he had boarded took off. Throughout his Saturday morning journey from the Siberian city of Omsk to Berlin he remained in stable condition, said Mr. Bizilj, who founded and runs the Cinema for Peace foundation.
The arrival in Germany of Mr. Navalny, who is the most persistent critic of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, comes as Moscow is watching popular uprisings against the government in Khabarovsk in its Far East, and in neighboring Belarus, weeks before Russians are scheduled to elect local leaders in municipal elections on Sept. 13.
Mr. Navalny had been meeting with opposition candidates in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city, promoting a strategy he called “smart voting” that encourages multiple, small opposition movements to back a single candidate on a local ballot.
The strategy seeks to chip away at the dominance of the pro-government party, United Russia, in city councils and regional parliaments.
Mr. Putin’s popularity has been in decline since about 2018 as nationalist fervor over the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine faded and the economy slumped under sanctions and then coronavirus lockdowns, creating an opening for this tactic.
Upon landing in Berlin after roughly seven hours en route, Mr. Navalny’s plane was met by an ambulance that brought him, under police escort, to the hospital where doctors immediately began extensive testing to determine what may have caused his illness and how to proceed with treatment.
“After completion of the examinations and after consultation with the family, the attending doctors will comment on the illness and further treatment steps,” Manuela Zingl, a spokeswoman for Charité, said in a statement. “The examinations will take some time. We therefore ask for your patience; we will inform you as soon as we have any findings.”
It remains unclear how the Kremlin and the Russian opposition will respond to Mr. Nalvany’s sudden departure from the political scene, analysts in Russia said. But much will hinge on his condition in the longer term and whether he will be able to return to Russia.
“There are cases that go both ways,” Ekaterina Schulmann, a Moscow-based political analyst, said in a telephone interview. “Sometimes, instances that are publicly perceived as political terror do demoralize the opposition, and at other times they motivate people to protest, or at the least to vote in protest.”
Mr. Navalny is being treated at the same the hospital where Pyotr Verzilov, a member of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot, was admitted in 2018. Doctors said at the time that he likely had been poisoned. Speaking to reporters via video link on Friday, Mr. Verzilov said the onset of his symptoms had mirrored those of Mr. Navalny, including a loss of consciousness and his slipping into a coma several hours after the suspected poisoning.
“The similarities are striking, not only in the medical condition, but in the behavior of the Russian government and doctors,” Mr. Verzilov said, pointing out that his own transfer out of Russia was delayed more than two days after the suspected poisoning. Such delays by Russian officials, critics say, are intended to make it harder to determine what substance has been ingested.
Mr. Navalny had collapsed in agonizing pain on Thursday shortly after takeoff on what was to have been a 2,000-mile flight to Moscow. His family suspects that poison may have been added to a cup of tea he drank in the airport hours before boarding that flight.
His evacuation came only after hours of wrangling with Russian doctors and officials, who had insisted that a transfer to Germany would endanger Mr. Navalny’s health. But a team of German doctors, who had arrived in Omsk on the air ambulance, were granted access to Mr. Navalny Friday afternoon and they stated unequivocally that it was safe for him to travel and he was cleared to board the plane.
Mr. Navalny’s wife, Yulia, who had sent Mr. Putin a letter on Friday requesting permission to evacuate her husband, was allowed to accompany him to Germany.
The Russian authorities have consistently denied that any evidence exists of poisoning. At a news conference on Friday, Dr. Aleksandr Murakhovsky said tests for toxins in Mr. Navalny’s blood were all negative. He said Mr. Navalny had suffered an “imbalance in carbohydrates, that is, metabolic disorder,” possibly caused by low blood sugar.
Mr. Navalny’s wife and personal doctor quickly dismissed this account, saying the idea that an otherwise healthy 44-year-old would collapse into a days-long coma from low blood sugar was ridiculous.
If Mr. Navalny is found to have ingested dangerous toxins, he would become the latest prominent Kremlin critic to have been the victim of a poisoning.
A fatal dose of the radioactive substance polonium 210 was used against Alexander Litvinenko, and a nerve agent called Novichok against Sergei Skripal, both former Russian intelligence officers attacked in England. The former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko fell ill from a dioxin, and unknown toxins were used against Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian journalist who lobbied in the West for sanctions against Kremlin operatives.
In all these cases, the people who ordered the attacks have remained unknown and, despite attempts to take cases to higher courts, including the European Court of Human Rights, justice has not been served.
Officials in Berlin did not immediately comment on Mr. Navalny’s arrival. But in offering this past week to allow the opposition leader into Germany for medical treatment, Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a thorough investigation.
“What is particularly important is that the circumstances behind this are cleared up very quickly,” Ms. Merkel said. “We insist on this, because what we have heard so far is very unfavorable. It must be done very transparently.”
Mr. Navalny was treated abroad previously, after an attack in 2017 in which a caustic liquid was thrown in his face, partially blinding him in one eye. He resumed his political activities almost without interruption. Dozens of arrests and short spells in jail have also failed to deter him.
Still, violence by pro-Kremlin activists and arrests for administrative offenses have kept Mr. Navalny out of sight for important events like protests and elections. Mr. Navalny will now be absent from campaigning before the September local elections.
If Mr. Navalny remains in Germany for a lengthy recovery or indefinitely as a political exile, the Russian government stands to benefit politically, Ms. Schulmann said.
“It is very useful to have an opposition figure in exile,” she said. “He can be cast in the state media as a person who fled Russia. They can present it as unpatriotic behavior.”
Melissa Eddy reported from Berlin, and Andrew E. Kramer from Moscow.
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