Doctors at the Siberian hospital that first treated Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday they had saved his life but found no trace of poison in his system.
Navalny, a longtime opponent of President Vladimir Putin, fell seriously ill on Thursday after what his allies believe was poisoning and was taken to Germany for treatment on Saturday.
“We saved his life with a lot of effort and work,” Chief Physician Alexander Murakhovsky told reporters at a news conference in the Siberian city of Omsk.
“If we found one kind of poison that was confirmed in some way, it would have been much easier for us. It would have been a clear diagnosis, a clear condition and a known course of treatment,” said Anatoly Kalinichenko, a senior doctor in the hospital.
Russian doctors on Monday did not say what specifically they had done to save Navalny’s life or what they had treated him for.
Last week, they said they had diagnosed him with a metabolic disease that was possibly caused by low blood sugar.
Navalny is a longtime opponent of President Vladimir Putin [File: Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters]
The doctors denied that they had come under pressure from authorities during treatment of Navalny.
Navalny’s allies had accused doctors of holding his medical evacuation to Germany. The doctors initially said that Navalny was not in a suitable condition to be transported for treatment.
Jaka Bizilj, founder of the German Cinema for Peace Foundation, told mass tabloid Bild over the weekend that Navalny, who is being treated in a German hospital, would survive.
He said: “Navalny will survive poison attacks, but months or months of politics will be indecent.”
But Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokeswoman, said there were no new details about the politician’s condition and that only she, as the doctors treating him, could provide reliable information.
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