Alexei Navalny is discharged and full recovery possible, says Berlin hospital

RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER Alexei Navalny, who the West believes was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, was released from the hospital after just over a month, the Berlin medical center treating him said.

“Based on the patient’s progress and current condition, treating physicians believe a full recovery is possible,” Charite Hospital said in a statement, adding that it was still too early to assess the long-term effects of his severe poisoning.

The 44-year-old Kremlin critic and anti-corruption activist fell ill after boarding a plane in Siberia last month and was hospitalized there before being flown to Berlin.

He spent 32 days in Berlin hospital, including 24 days in intensive care, before his discharge.

Germany has said toxicology tests provide “unequivocal evidence” that it had been poisoned by the Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent, which was also used in a separate poisoning in 2018 on former double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, Great Britain.

Since then, France and Sweden have said that their independent tests corroborate Germany’s findings.

European leaders have demanded explanations from Moscow, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that “only Russia can and should” provide answers on the poisoning.

Navalny’s allies say he may have been poisoned by a cup of tea he drank at Tomsk airport in Siberia.

But Russian doctors who first treated Navalny said their tests found no toxic substances and the Kremlin rejected international requests for an investigation.

In his first blog post since coming out of his coma, Navalny said Monday that the three European laboratories had found Novichok “in and on my body.”

He noted that Russia had not yet opened an investigation but “did not expect anything else.”

Navalny’s aides said last week that German experts found the nerve agent Novichok in a bottle of water they took from the hotel room where he was staying before he got sick.

The bottle appears to have been key evidence for Germany’s conclusion that the 44-year-old lawyer and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin was poisoned with the military-grade nerve agent.

© – AFP 2020