Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny thanks first responders amid recovery in Germany

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s critic and main opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in Germany recovering after being in a coma for over 30 days, on Friday, September 25 expressed “huge gratitude” to pilots and airport medical staff who gave him “additional 15-20 hours of life”.

In a lengthy heartfelt post on Instagram with an image of him along with wife Yulia, the Russian opposition leader thanked the first responders or the “unknown friends” and “good people”. Alexei Navalny had collapsed on a plane to Moscow from Siberia on August 20 and spent over three weeks in a coma. 

While on his road to steady recovery, Navalny thanked the first responders at the airport who “jammed a dose of atropine” into him after identifying “a toxic poisoning” that his supporters have claimed that it was done by the government. However, when the Russian opposition leader had spent the first 48 hours in a hospital in Omsk, the Russian doctors have said they found could not trace any signs of poisoning. After this, he was transferred to Charite hospital in Berlin where the German chemical weapons experts determined that he was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent called Novichok. These findings were further corroborated by French and Swedish labs. 

Alexei Navalny wrote in the Instagram post, “That is, the pilots and first doctors simply gave me an additional 15-20 hours of life. Everything that followed was very dramatic and deserves a separate story, but there would definitely be nothing to tell if it were not for these guys. Thank you, good unknown friends. You are good people.”

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Navalny’s bank accounts frozen, home seized

Meanwhile, Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh on Thursday, September 24 said that all his bank accounts have been frozen and his Moscow flat has been seized by authorities. According to a BBC report, Yarmysh claimed that Navalny’s assets were seized while he was in the coma.

As per a video posted by Yarmysh on Twitter, Navalny’s assets were seized in connection to a case his anti-corruption foundation (FBK) was fighting against the Moscow Schoolchild catering company which is owned by Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. Navalny has recently been discharged from the hospital.

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Image Credit: AP