Alexei Navalny’s allies called on his supporters to hold mass protests in towns and cities across Russia on Wednesday, amid a serious warning that prisoner Kremlin critic and opposition leader is now dangerously ill and “on any moment “can die.
Navalny’s team said the situation had become so desperate that there was no time to procrastinate. They had previously said street protests would resume as soon as they reached 500,000 signatures in support – with the current score around 50,000.
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 a public display was the only way to save him. Volkov encouraged citizens to gather on Wednesday at 19:00 on squares across the country.
The appeal is a showdown between Navalny’s followers and Vladimir Putin, who is due to deliver his annual state of the nation address at the same time. In January, the Kremlin used brutal force to break up pro-Navalny street protests, with thousands of people arrested.
‘Have you ever seen with your own eyes how a person is killed? You see it now, “said Volkov. He added: ‘If we are not talking now, the darkest times for free people are at hand. Russia will fall into total hopelessness. ”
In a further crackdown, the Russian prosecutor’s office will designate Navalny’s FBC anti – corruption foundation and its regional headquarters as extremist organizations. This will enable the authorities to imprison Navalny’s colleagues for up to six years as ‘terrorists’.
Navalny’s allies said at the weekend that he would risk a cardiac arrest at any moment and that he would be dead within days. He has been on hunger strike for almost three weeks and has demanded – without success – that an independent medical team be allowed to examine him.
Navalny’s daughter Dasha pleaded on Twitter on Sunday that her father should get the care he needs. “Allow a doctor to see my father,” she wrote.
Allow a doctor to see my father.
– Dasha (@Dasha_Navalnaya) 18 April 2021
Navalny returned to Moscow from Germany in January after recovering from an assassination attempt. A secret unit of the Russian FSB espionage agency poisoned him last summer with the nerve agent novichok while on a trip to Siberia, he claims. The Kremlin denies the claim.
Navalny was immediately arrested. He was then convicted in a case which, according to him and the Western governments, was politically motivated. Navalny recently complained that he had lost feeling in his legs and arms. His wife, Yulia, who visited him last week, said he now weighed 76kg – since he started his hunger strike – and that he was so weak he had to lie down.
There are few signs that the Kremlin is willing to concede or concede to demands from US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders that Navalny be released. Andrei Kelin, the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom, on Sunday accused Navalny of distracting behavior.
“He may not die in prison, but I can say that Navalny behaved absolutely like a villain,” Kelin told the BBC. The ambassador added: ‘His aim with all this is to attract attention to him[self]. ”
Navalny, 44, was jailed in February and is serving two and a half years on charges of embezzlement in a penal colony in the city of Pokrov, about 100 kilometers east of Moscow.
Navalny’s personal doctor, Anastasia Vasilyeva, and three other doctors, including cardiologist Yaroslav Ashikhmin, asked prison officials to grant them immediate access.
“Our patient could die at any moment,” Ashikhmin said on Facebook on Saturday, pointing to the high potassium levels of the opposition politician, saying Navalny should be moved to intensive care. “Fatal arrhythmia can develop at any moment.”
Having potassium levels higher than 6.0 mmol (millimoles) per liter usually requires immediate treatment. Navalny’s was at 7.1, doctors said. “This means that both kidney function is impaired and that serious heart rhythm problems can occur at any moment,” reads a statement on Vasilyeva’s Twitter account.
According to the doctors, he should be examined immediately, taking into account the blood tests and his recent poisoning.
Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, who accompanied him when he crashed on an internal flight in August, 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 she was’ on the plane ‘again, but only this time in slow motion land’, pointing out that access to Navalny was limited and that few Russians were aware of what was going on with him in prison. continue.