Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is “seriously ill” in the penal colony where he is incarcerated and was recently transferred to the prison infirmary to be treated for a respiratory disease, reports Tuesday.
The longtime critic of Vladimir Putin, already struggling with his health, said in a note on Monday that he was coughing and had a fever of 100.6F, the Guardian reported.
Navalny has reportedly been tested for COVID-19, but it’s not clear if the results came back or if he tested positive.
However, several inmates from his ward have previously been treated for tuberculosis, the opponent said.
Olga Mikhailova, a lawyer for Navalny, told Moscow radio station Echo that a member of Navalny’s legal team had visited him on Tuesday and that he was “in a pretty bad shape.”
“He has lost a lot of weight, has a strong cough and a fever [100.6F], ”Said Mikhailova.
“This man is seriously ill. It’s a complete shame that the IK-2 [prison] has driven him to this state. “
Navalny, 44, is serving a two-and-a-half year jail term on allegations of embezzlement that human rights activists have called fabricated and politically motivated, and as a result of the lawyer’s attacks on Putin.
He was arrested in January after returning from Germany, where he was poisoned twice with a Soviet-era nerve agent.
Last week, Navalny announced a hunger strike when prison officials refused to show him a personal doctor for help treating pain and numbness in his back and legs that made it difficult for him to walk.
He has previously described the prison as a ‘real concentration camp’.
On Tuesday, several supporters who traveled to prison to protest the lack of medical care were arrested by Russian police, including Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Russian Doctors’ Alliance, and three other members of the group.
Reporters from CNN and Belsat, a Polish television station, were also detained, the Guardian reported.
“We come here today to help,” Vasilyeva told reporters before she was handcuffed. ‘There is no war here. Let’s solve this problem as humans. “
Navalny’s wife, Yulia, published a letter from the prison guard on Tuesday saying that her husband could not be sent to a hospital because he did not have his passport.
She further alleged that the warden challenged her husband by grilling a chicken for him and handing out sweets to fellow inmates while Navalny continued his hunger strike.
