Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is “seriously ill” in the penal colony where he was arrested and was recently transferred to the prison infirmary to be treated for a respiratory illness, according to reports on Tuesday.
Long-time critic of Vladimir Putin, who was already struggling with his health, said in a note on Monday that he was coughing and had a fever of 38.6 ° C, the Guardian reported.
Navalny was reportedly tested for COVID-19, but it is unclear whether the results came back or whether he tested positive.
However, several prisoners in his ward had already been treated for tuberculosis, the opposition said.
Olga Mikhailova, Navalny’s lawyer, told the radio station Echo of Moscow that a member of Navalny’s legal team visited him on Tuesday and that he was “in very bad shape”.
“He lost a lot of weight, as well as having a strong cough and a temperature of [100.6F]”Said Mikhailova.
“This man is seriously ill. It is a complete outrage that the IK-2 [prison] led him to this condition. “
Navalny, 44, is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on charges of embezzlement that human rights defenders deemed counterfeit and politically motivated as a result of the attorney’s attacks on Putin.
He was arrested in January after returning from Germany, where he was poisoned twice with a Soviet-era nerve agent.
Last week, Navalny declared a hunger strike when prison officials refused to allow him to go to a private doctor to help him treat the pain and numbness in his back and legs that made it difficult for him to walk.
He had previously described the prison as a “genuine concentration camp”.
On Tuesday, several supporters who traveled to the prison to protest the lack of medical care were arrested by the Russian police, including Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Russian Medical Alliance, and three other members of the group.
Reporters from CNN and Belsat, a Polish television station, were also arrested, the Guardian said.
“We are coming here today to offer help,” Vasilyeva told reporters before being handcuffed. “There is no war here. We will solve this problem as people. “
Navalny’s wife, Yulia, published a letter sent on Tuesday by the prison director explaining that her husband could not be sent to a hospital because he did not have a passport.
She further claimed that the director insulted her husband by grilling a chicken in front of him and distributing sweets to other inmates, while Navalny continued his hunger strike.
