Russian authorities decided to move opposition leader Alexey Navalny to a prison hospital after allies warned his health was failing amid a hunger strike and the U.S. threatened the Kremlin with unspecified “consequences” if he dies.
Navalny is in “satisfactory condition,” the local branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service said in a website statement Monday. He agreed to “vitamin therapy” and is getting daily examinations from a doctor, it said.
The transfer means Navalny’s condition has “worsened so much that the even the torture chamber admits it,” Ivan Zhdanov, head of the activist’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote in Twitter.
The 44-year-old’s condition has become the latest flashpoint in the growing tensions between Russia and the West. The U.S. and Europe are pressing President Vladimir Putin to ensure proper medical care for Navalny, who began a hunger strike in prison March 31 to demand access to his personal doctors for acute back and leg pains.
The opposition leader’s supporters on Sunday called for protests across Russia on April 21, the day Putin is due to give his annual state-of-the-nation address, after warning that the Kremlin’s most outspoken critic may be only days from death.
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{Matzav.com}
