MOSCOW – Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on Friday that he will end his hunger strike upon receiving medical attention and on warning from his doctors that his life was at risk.
In a message on Instagram on the 24th day of his hunger strike, Navalny said that he will continue to demand a visit from his doctor due to the loss of sensation in his arms and legs, his main complaint when initiating the measure.
But he said he decided to desist from the strike after being examined by non-prison doctors, something he called a “huge advance”.
ALEXEI NAVALNY IS SERVING A TWO AND A HALF YEAR SENTENCE
“Thanks to the great support of good people across the country and the world, we have made tremendous progress,” Navalny said in his message.
“Two months ago, my requests for medical assistance elicited mocking smiles. They did not give me medicine … Thanks to you, I have been examined twice by a board of civil doctors ”.
Navalny said he will begin “coming out of the hunger strike” on Friday and the process of ending it will take 24 days.
The United States government announced on Tuesday sanctions against Russia for the poisoning and imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, including visa and economic restrictions, White House officials reported.
The 44-year-old politician, arrested months ago to serve a two-and-a-half-year sentence, went on strike on March 31 in protest that prison authorities refused to allow his doctors to visit when he began to suffer severe back pain. and numbness in the legs.
Authorities said Navalny was receiving all necessary medical care, but he said he was not actually receiving any treatment.
Massive demonstrations took place across Russia on Wednesday to demand their freedom.
“They lowered a month and a half. Something is something,” Navalny joked in the “fishbowl” after hearing the opinion of judge Dmitri Balashov.
One of his collaborators said that the protests apparently obtained from the authorities a commitment to give him the medical assistance he demanded when he started the hunger strike.
Navalny, the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in January upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning that he attributes to the Kremlin. The Russian authorities reject the accusation.