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Alexei Navalny, Russia’s poisoned opposition figure, came out of an induced coma and his condition has improved, says a Berlin hospital.
The doctor says he is responding to verbal stimuli. Navalny was flown to Germany after falling ill on a flight over Siberia in July.
His team says he was poisoned on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who denies his involvement.
German doctors say he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
Mr. Navalny was being removed from mechanical ventilation.
It was too early to assess the long-term impact of the poisoning, the hospital added.
Chancellor Angela Markel said last week that Navalny was the victim of an assassination attempt and that the world would look to Russia for answers.
But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova previously said the allegation that Novichok was used to poison the leader was not supported by evidence.
A Novichok nerve agent was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018.
Navalny is an anti-corruption activist who has led protests across the country against the Russian authorities. He has called Putin’s party a place of “scammers and thieves” that is “sucking the blood of Russia.”
