Doctors denied access to ‘very weak’ Navalny

VLADIMIR AFP, 20 April, 2021 - Alexei Navalny’s doctors were again denied access Tuesday to the jailed Kremlin critic, as lawyers for the hunger-striking opposition figure said he was “very weak” and demanded he be transferred to a civilian hospital.   

A team of medics has been trying to see the 44-year-old since early this month, after President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken opponent began refusing food on March 31 to demand proper medical treatment for a litany of ailments.   

Nearly three weeks into the hunger strike, doctors over the weekend warned that Navalny’s health was failing so rapidly he could die at “any minute”, as the United States threatened Russia with “consequences” in the event of his death.   

Russia’s prison service, which has repeatedly prevented Navalny’s doctors from visiting him, said Monday that he had been moved from his penal colony in the Vladimir region some 100 kilometres east of Moscow to a medical facility at another colony in the same region.