“It’s a matter of days”: they warn that Russian opponent Navalny is on the verge of death

MOSCÚ – Alexei Navalny “He is dying, in his condition it is a matter of days”, warned this Saturday the relatives of the leader of the Russian opposition, locked in the walls of the harsh penitentiary colony of Pokrov.

Navalny’s vocera, Kira Yatmish, launched the dramatic alert on the physical deterioration of Navalny, the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin and who is in his second week of hunger strike.

The fear is that his body, already bruised by the poisoning from which Navalny suffered last year and from which it is clear that he has not fully recovered, is now at the end of its possibilities.

Navalny went on a hunger strike on March 31 to seek medical treatment for his back pain and loss of sensation in both legs.

A group of doctors who support him demanded immediate access to the dissident, stressing that the level of potassium in your blood is “critical” and that you may have “cardiac arrest” at any moment.

Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption in a prison in the city of Pokrov, about 100 kilometers east of Moscow.

Urgent access

Navalny’s personal doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva and three other doctors, including a cardiologist, wrote a letter to prison officials for urgent access.

“Serum potassium is 7.1 mmol / l. These are critical levels, ”Vasilyeva said on her Twitter account. “This means that the functions of both kidneys are imbalanced and a heart problem can occur at any time.”

A blood potassium level above 6.0 mmol / L usually requires immediate treatment.

In their joint letter, the doctors do not rule out that Navalny, who was a short survivor of poisoning with the toxic agent Novichok and for which he was treated in Germany, could suffer “cardiac arrest”.

Navalny’s lawyers were unable to visit him this weekend, but the doctors believe that he must be treated immediately “in view of the blood tests and his recent poisoning”.

More than 70 Western writers, artists and academics have called on Putin to ensure that Navalny receives proper treatment, through an open letter that appeared in influential media such as the British magazine. The Economist and the French newspaper The world.

AFP and ANSA agencies

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