The Russian correctional service said on Monday that it was ailing dissident Alexei Navalny, who is on the 20th day of a hunger strike, to a prison hospital – amid great fear for his health.
The decision comes a day after the US threatened the Kremlin with “consequences” if President Vladimir Putin’s main domestic opponent dies behind bars, Agence France-Presse said.
Navalny’s private doctors warned over the weekend that he could die “any minute.”
Russian prison authorities, who barred the 44-year-old’s own medical team from visiting him, said doctors had decided to move him to a medical facility on the grounds of another penal colony in Vladimir, a town about 180 kilometers away. east of Moscow. .
But they insisted the Kremlin critic’s condition was “ satisfactory, ” adding that he was taking vitamin supplements as part of his medical treatment.
Navalny’s doctor, Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, said on Saturday that test results he received from Navalny’s family show him he has greatly elevated potassium levels, which can cause cardiac arrest, and elevated creatinine levels that indicate reduced kidneys.
“Our patient could die any moment,” he wrote on Facebook.
Navalny went on a hunger strike to protest the refusal to have his doctors visit when he began to experience severe back pain and a loss of sensation in his legs.
The Russian state prison, FSIN, has said that Navalny received all the medical attention he needed.
His allies have called for a nationwide rally on Wednesday, the same day that Putin is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the National address.
Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers are reviewing the bloc’s strategy towards Russia amid the weakening health of the Navalny and in the wake of the military build-up on Ukraine’s borders.
Josep Borrell, head of EU foreign policy, attacked the Kremlin on Sunday for the arrest and treatment of Navalny, insisting he should have access to doctors he trusts.
“Overall, relations with Russia are not improving, but on the contrary, tension is growing on several fronts,” Borrell said in a statement.
Navalny was arrested in January on his return from Germany, where he had recovered for five months from a nerve poisoning he blames on the Kremlin – allegations that Russian officials have dismissed.
His arrest sparked widespread protests across Russia.
A court has ordered Navalny to spend 2 1/2 years in prison after a 2014 embezzlement conviction that he said was fabricated and that the European Court of Human Rights was considered “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”.
Last month, the politician was transferred to an infamous penal colony east of Moscow.
With pole wires