Extract from ABC News
Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny is in a coma in an intensive care unit in Siberia after suffering symptoms of what his spokesperson suspects to be poisoning.
Key points:
- Mr Navalny has served several stints in jail in recent years for organising anti-Kremlin protests
- He started feeling ill when returning to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia
- Russia holds regional elections next month and Mr Navalny has been preparing for them
Mr Navalny, 44, is unconscious, in intensive care and on an artificial lung ventilator, his spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, said on social media.
"We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea. It was the only thing that he drank in the morning," Ms Yarmysh said.
"Doctors say the toxin was absorbed faster through the hot liquid. Alexei is now unconscious."
Mr Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, had started feeling ill when returning to Moscow from Tomsk in Siberia by plane on Wednesday morning (local time), she added.
His plane later made an emergency landing in Omsk so that he could be rushed to hospital.
He had drunk tea at a cafe at Tomsk airport before boarding his flight, Ms Yarmysh said.
The Interfax news agency quoted the cafe's owners as saying they were checking CCTV cameras to try to establish what had happened.
The Kremlin released a statement saying that doctors were doing all they could to help the opposition politician, and wished him a speedy recovery, "as it would any other Russian citizen".
However, doctors gave contradictory information about Mr Navalny's condition. They said his condition had stabilised but also there was still a threat to his life.
Mr Navalny's wife Yulia flew from Moscow to be with him. Ms Yarmysh said hospital officials had so far prevented Mr Navalny's personal doctor, who had also flown in, from seeing him.
Doctors were also refusing to discharge him so that he could be flown to Europe for emergency treatment, she said.
The hospital said his condition meant he could not be moved for now.
Prior arrests were 'politically motivated', human-rights court says.
Ms Yarmysh drew a parallel with an incident last year in which Mr Navalny suffered an acute allergic reaction one doctor said could have resulted from poisoning with an unknown chemical.
"Obviously the same has been done to him now," she said.
She did not say who she believed may have poisoned Mr Navalny, but said police had been called to the hospital.
Mr Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, has served several stints in jail in recent years for organising anti-Kremlin protests.
He has helped release high-impact investigations into what he has said are outrageous examples of official corruption.
Edward Snowden, the former US National Security Agency contractor in exile in Russia, tweeted that if poisoning is confirmed, "it is a crime against the whole of Russia."
US President Donald Trump said the US would look into the situation involving Mr Navalny.
Russia holds regional elections next month and Mr Navalny and his allies have been preparing for them, trying to increase support for candidates which they back.
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russia's arrests and detention of Navalny in 2012 and 2014 were politically motivated and violated his human rights, a ruling Moscow called questionable.
ABC/Wires
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