Alexei Navalny’s allies called on his supporters to stage mass protests in cities across Russia on Wednesday amid a stern warning that the Kremlin opposition critic and leader is now dangerously ill and could die “at any time.” ”.
Navalny’s team said the situation had become so desperate that he did not have time to delay. Earlier, they said street protests would resume once they reached 500,000 signatures in support – with a current number of about 50,000 short.
In a video posted on Navalny’s YouTube channel, his deputies Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov said Navalny’s health had deteriorated so dramatically that mass public exposure was the only way to save him. Volkov urged citizens to gather at markets across the country on Wednesday at 7 p.m.
The appeal establishes a confrontation between Navalny’s followers and Vladimir Putin, who is to deliver his annual speech on the state of the nation at the same time. In January, the Kremlin used brute force to break up pro-Navalny protests in the streets, with thousands arrested.
“Have you ever seen with your own eyes how a person is killed? You see it right now, “Volkov said. He added: “If we do not speak now, the darkest times for free people are at hand. Russia will descend into total despair. “
In another cut, the Russian prosecutor’s office will designate Navalny’s FBK anti-corruption foundation and its regional headquarters as extremist organizations. This would allow the authorities to imprison Navalny’s colleagues as “terrorists” for up to six years.
Over the weekend, Navalny’s allies said he risked a cardiac arrest at “any minute” and that he could be dead in a few days. He has been on hunger strike for almost three weeks and has asked – unsuccessfully – for an independent medical team to be allowed to examine him.
On Sunday, Navalny’s daughter, Dasha, pleaded on Twitter for her father to be given the care he needs. “Let a doctor see my father,” she wrote.
Let a doctor see my father.
– Dasha (@Dasha_Navalnaya) April 18, 2021
Navalny returned to Moscow in January from Germany after recovering from an assassination attempt. A secret unit of the Russian intelligence agency FSB poisoned him last summer with the nervous agent novichok while he was on a trip to Siberia, he claims. The Kremlin denies the claim.
Navalny was immediately arrested. He was then convicted in a case that he and Western governments say is politically motivated. Navalny recently complained that he lost his feeling in his legs and arms. His wife, Yulia, who visited him last week, said he now weighed 76kg – 9kg down since the hunger strike began – and was so thin that he had to lie down.
There are few signs that the Kremlin is willing to give in or give in to demands from US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders for Navalny to be released from custody. On Sunday, Russia’s ambassador to Britain, Andrei Kelin, accused Navalny of seeking attention.
“He will not be allowed to die in prison, but I can say that Mr Navalny is behaving like a hooligan, absolutely,” Kelin told the BBC. The ambassador added: “His purpose for all this is to draw attention to himself[self]. ”
Navalny, 44, was jailed in February and served two-and-a-half years on charges of embezzlement in a penal colony in the town of Pokrov, about 100 kilometers east of Moscow.
Navalny’s personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, and three other doctors, including cardiologist Yaroslav Ashikhmin, called on prison officials to grant them immediate access.
“Our patient can die at any time,” Ashikhmin said on Facebook on Saturday, pointing to the opposition politician’s high potassium level and saying Navalny should be moved to intensive care. “Fatal arrhythmia can develop at any minute.”
To have blood potassium levels higher than 6.0 mmol (millimoles) per liter, immediate treatment is usually needed. Navalny was at 7.1, doctors said. “This means both kidney dysfunction and serious heart rhythm problems can occur at any time,” Vasilyeva said on a Twitter account.
Doctors said he should be examined immediately “taking into account his blood tests and recent poisoning.”
Navalny’s spokesman Kira Yarmysh, who accompanied him when he crashed on a domestic flight after the August poisoning, said the situation was again critical. “Alexei is dying,” she said on Facebook. “With his condition, it’s a matter of days.”
She said she felt “back on that plane, only this time landing in slow motion,” noting that access to Navalny was restricted and few Russians were aware of what was actually happening to him in prison.