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Russian Opposition Leader Leaves Berlin Hospital After Poisoning Russian Opposition Leader Leaves Berlin Hospital After Poisoning
(about 1 hour later)
BERLIN — Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, has been released from a hospital in Germany and could make a full recovery after being poisoned with a highly toxic nerve agent, doctors said on Wednesday. BERLIN — Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, has been released from a hospital in Germany and could make a full recovery from poisoning with a highly toxic nerve agent, doctors said on Wednesday, as European leaders wrestled over a response to Moscow.
“Based on the patient’s progress and current condition, the treating physicians believe that complete recovery is possible,” the Charité hospital said in a statement released on Wednesday. “However, it remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning.”“Based on the patient’s progress and current condition, the treating physicians believe that complete recovery is possible,” the Charité hospital said in a statement released on Wednesday. “However, it remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning.”
Mr. Navalny arrived at the hospital, one of Germany’s leading research clinics, on Aug. 22 after being evacuated by air ambulance from the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he had been receiving treatment after collapsing on Aug. 20 while aboard a flight to Moscow. Neither the doctors nor Mr. Navalny, who has returned to communicating with his supporters via his Instagram account in recent days, gave any indication of where he would go after his release. But a senior German security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the opposition leader’s movements, said he would remain in Berlin for rehabilitation.
Doctors at the Charité hospital placed Mr. Navalny in a medically induced coma in the intensive care ward, where he spent 24 days. Mr. Navalny has said that he intends to return to Russia. He arrived at the hospital, one of Germany’s leading research clinics, on Aug. 22 after being evacuated by air ambulance from the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he had been receiving treatment after collapsing on Aug. 20 while aboard a domestic flight to Moscow.
Russia has maintained that it played no role in the poisoning of Mr. Navalny, although he would not be the first Kremlin enemy to be poisoned with a class of Novichok, a Soviet-designed chemical weapon. A similar agent was used by Russian operatives in Britain in 2018 to attack Sergei V. Skripal, a former intelligence officer who had served prison time in Russia for spying for the British before being traded in a spy swap.
Given the substance used, the German authorities and others say there is no doubt that the Russian government was behind the poisoning. Such an act would be a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention to which it is a signatory.
The organization is expected in the coming days to release the results of its own analysis of biomedical samples collected from Mr. Navalny by its team of experts. Leaders in Berlin and Paris are awaiting the findings before moving to impose financial sanctions on Russia through the European Union.
Once Mr. Navalny arrived in Berlin, doctors at the Charité hospital placed him in a medically induced coma in the intensive care ward, where he spent 24 days, while also under constant police protection.
Suspecting that their patient was suffering from an agent more complex than what they could detect, they sent samples to their colleagues at the Military Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology in Munich, which found traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok family in Mr. Navalny’s blood and urine.Suspecting that their patient was suffering from an agent more complex than what they could detect, they sent samples to their colleagues at the Military Institute for Pharmacology and Toxicology in Munich, which found traces of a nerve agent from the Novichok family in Mr. Navalny’s blood and urine.
It was also found on a water bottle that the opposition leader’s team had brought to Germany from his hotel room, leading them to believe that he was poisoned there, not at the airport as had been originally suspected. It was also found on a water bottle that the opposition leader’s team brought to Germany from his hotel room, leading them to believe that he was poisoned there, not at the airport as had been originally suspected.
Laboratories in France and Sweden have confirmed the German findings that Mr. Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the Novichok family, bolstering the theory that the Russian government had carried out an attack on him. Laboratories in France and Sweden have confirmed the German findings that Mr. Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent from the Novichok family.
Russia has maintained that it played no role in the poisoning of Mr. Navalny. Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from London.