Putin Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Reportedly in Coma, On Ventilator After Suspected Poisoning

MAXIM ZMEYEV/AFP via Getty Images

Yet another prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin has found himself clinging to life. This time, it’s Alexei Navalny (alternatively spelled Alexey Navalny), the 44-year-old Russian opposition leader and vocal Kremlin critic, who fell ill on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow, with poisoning strongly suspected as the cause.

According to CNN, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted that he had a cup of black tea in the airport cafe before boarding his plane. During the flight, Navalny began suffering symptoms and “sharply deteriorated,” perspiring heavily and losing consciousness.

The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, where Navalny was put on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance, which took him to the hospital, where he was admitted into the acute poisoning unit.

Several video clips posted on social media showed Navalny groaning in apparent pain on the plane, and then later being loaded into the ambulance, immobile and seemingly unconscious.

Yarmysh said that the tea was the only thing that Navalny had consumed that morning. Hospital representatives confirmed that he was in stable but “serious condition,” and was unconscious and on a ventilator. An exact cause of his illness had not been confirmed but doctors were hopeful they would have a diagnosis soon.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, “Of course, like for any citizen of our country, we wish him a speedy recovery,” and acknowledged they were aware of the media reports about Navalny’s condition, but waved off accusations that he had been poisoned, dismissing them as “only assumptions” that “must be confirmed by laboratory tests.”

“We know that he is in a serious condition,” said Peskov. “Doctors are now doing what is necessary. In Omsk, the best doctors are involved in this case.”

Yarmysh also tweeted that Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, had gathered his papers and other personal possessions from their home to prevent Russian authorities from seizing them. Nonetheless, investigators reportedly seized at least some of the property from her when she went to the hospital to visit Navalny.

Several world leaders publicly offered not just well-wishes but asylum and other types of assistance, including French President Emmanuel Macron.

Navalny joins a tragically growing club of outspoken Kremlin critics who have ended up dead or gravely ill under mysterious circumstances, including investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who claimed she had been poisoned with tea on a flight in 2004 and then was assassinated in what appeared to be a professional hit in 2006; Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after his tea was spiked with a highly radioactive poison, polonium-210; former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia who were poisoned in a nerve gas attack in 2018; and Vladimir Kara-Murza, another Putin critic who has reported two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017.

The Kremlin, naturally, denies any involvement in these mysterious illnesses and deaths.

Correction: This article originally stated that Navalny had a cup of black coffee instead of black tea, and has been updated.