MOSCOW (AP) – A lawyer for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who complained of severe back and leg pain while in custody, said on Wednesday that doctors determined he was suffering from two spinal cord thighs.
Vadim Kobzev told the Interfax news agency that Navalny also has a spine protrusion and is starting to lose feeling in his hands.
Navalny went on a hunger strike last week to protest what he called poor medical care in a Russian prison. On Tuesday, the leader of the Navalny-backed Alliance of Doctors union was arrested by police after attempting to enter the prison to talk to doctors.
Navalny, 44, is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic opponent. He was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow from Germany, where he recovered for five months from a nerve infection he blames on the Kremlin. The Russian authorities have rejected the accusation. Still, labs in Germany and elsewhere in Europe confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent.
A Russian court ordered Navalny to serve 2 1/2 years in prison in February for violating the terms of his probation, including during his recovery in Germany, after an embezzlement in 2014. Navalny has dismissed the conviction as fabricated, and the European court on human rights considered it “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable”.
Navalny said in an Instagram post on Wednesday that prison authorities have tried to undermine his hunger strike by having aromatic chicken cooked in his unit’s kitchen, deviating from regulations and putting candy in his clothes bags.
“Do you know what turned out to be the most important thing in the first phase of the prison hunger strike? Check your pockets, ”he wrote.
Navalny’s imprisonment has attracted widespread criticism from the West. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday, “We urge the Russian authorities to take all necessary steps to ensure his safety and health,” adding that “we consider Mr. Navalny’s imprisonment on trumped-up charges to be politically motivated and a gross injustice, and we stand with like-minded allies and partners in calling for his immediate release. ”
Authorities last month transferred Navalny from a Moscow prison to the IK-2 penal colony in the Vladimir region, 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of the Russian capital. The facility in the city of Pokrov is distinguished from the Russian correctional facilities for its particularly strict inmate routines, including standing for hours.
Within weeks of his incarceration, Navalny said he was experiencing severe back and leg pain and was actually not getting any sleep because a security guard checks him every hour at night. He went on a hunger strike on March 31, demanding access to appropriate medication and a visit from his doctor.
The Russian state prison has said that Navalny is getting all the medical attention he needs.
Another Navalny attorney, Olga Mikhailova, said a neurologist consulted by Navalny’s organization said the treatment prescribed in the prison was ineffective.
Navalny said on Monday that three of the 15 people he is living with have been diagnosed with tuberculosis, an infectious disease that spreads through the air. He said he had a strong cough and fever with a temperature of 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.6 F).
On Monday, the state jail said Navalny had been the prison’s sanitary unit after an inspection found he had “signs of a respiratory illness, including a high fever.”
Mikhailova said on Wednesday that Navalny’s fever had dropped, but he is still coughing and weak from the hunger strike.