Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is not eating because the prison diet aggravates his stomach pain, his spokeswoman Kira Jarmyšová told Reuters. Navalny’s associates warned this week that the opposition figure was ill and said he may be being given small doses of poison in prison.
This concern is shared by his spokeswoman, who told Reuters on Thursday that Navalny’s health condition could be due to a slow-acting poison. “He is not eating anything because he is not allowed to receive packages with food and is not even allowed to buy it in the prison store and because the food provided to him by the prison worsens his stomach pains,” said Jarmyšová. In addition, according to her, Navalny does not receive adequate health care.
Navalny’s lawyer Vadim Kobzev pointed out on Tuesday that his client has lost a lot of weight and is suffering from an unknown disease for which no one is treating him. On the night from Friday to Saturday, an ambulance was called to the jailed opposition representative due to acute stomach problems.
Navalny is now serving 11.5 years in prison in Russia. He found himself behind bars after the judiciary found him guilty of fraud and contempt of court. According to Navalny, the cases were fabricated and intended to silence him as a critic of the Kremlin, reports Reuters.
In 2020, Navalny spent several months recovering in Germany from poisoning, which Western laboratories say was caused by a war substance from the Novichok group. He accused the Kremlin of masterminding the poisoning, but the Kremlin denies it and denies that Navalny would even be the target of a similar attack.
