Alexei Navalny's family is asking the Russian authorities to permit them to move him by a Siberian hospital to a hospital in Berlin, after doctors refused to authorize the transfer. Navalny, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, stays in a coma because of an apparent poisoning.
Navalny's wife, Yulia, has sent a letter to the Kremlin officially asking approval to evacuate him. An emergency medical plane is waiting to take the politician out of a hospital at Omsk to specialists in Germany. But doctors at Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1 say that his illness is too unstable to permit for traveling. She was traveling with the opposition figure Thursday when he suddenly fell ill.
A clearly defeated Yulia Navalny talked to the media away from the hospital, calling the problem"outrageous" and saying that it's"clear authorities are trying to hide something . We demand they let's take him to doctors we hope," according to a translation by writer Oliver Carroll of The Independent.
German doctors in Omsk were permitted to visit the hospital on Friday -- but Yulia Navalny wasn't permitted to speak to them, and witnesses say the doctors were whisked from their centre and driven from a vehicle. Security and police officials blocked journalists and people from Navalny's camp from approaching the vehicle.
Yarmysh submitted a video from inside the hospital revealing exactly what she said were officers turning Yulia Navalny away when she moved in search of the physicians.
Following the German physicians left, Yarmysh stated through Twitter they had determined Navalny can be safely moved to Berlin through the specially equipped plane. "The German NGO had previously airlifted Pussy Riot activist Pyotr Verzilov into Germany after he suffered a suspected poisoning in 2018."
On Friday, Alexander Murakhovsky, the chief physician at the Omsk hospital, said the staff has diagnosed Navalny with a metabolic disorder, linked to a fall in blood sugar.
"This is actually contradictory information since officials have told Navalny's colleagues that, in fact, a poisonous substance was discovered and that it's so poisonous that folks around him have to wear protective suits," NPR's Lucian Kim reports.
The analysis introduces a paradox, says Navalny's physician, Anastasy Vasilyeva, that flew to Omsk on Thursday. If Navalny is suffering from a blood glucose imbalance rather than exposure to a potentially lethal toxin, she says, why not let him be transferred to Berlin's Charité hospital?
Accusing Murakhovsky of all"mean-spirited doublespeak," Vasilyeva said via Twitter that the metabolic disease was brought on by poison -- and she provided her own explanation for its delay in approving his transfer.
"If he has been diagnosed with simply a metabolic disease, why not allow Alexei go to Berlin? This is because they're waiting for three times that his system clears the toxin and it will become impossible to discover in Europe the existence of a poisonous substance in his body," Vasilyeva explained, according to a translation by the Interfax news agency.
The two Vasilyeva and Yarmysh are posting images from inside the Omsk hospital, wanting to counter officials who state conditions that there are not any worse than in the Charité clinic. Their photos show battered walls and hallways, and states that look to be less than pristine.
Navalny's aides and family say he had been poisoned if he drank tea at an airport at Tomsk before shooting off for Moscow Thursday morning.
Navalny, 44, is a powerful force for Russia's resistance, with a huge online following that has grown despite scant coverage of him in state-approved media channels. He rose to fame by investigating corruption and mobilizing against Putin's regime -- and he attempted to operate against Putin from the 2018 presidential election but was barred from doing so.
This is the second time Navalny has possibly been contested. The first instance came last summer, when he was hospitalized days after being detained for calling for street protests.
A number of Kremlin foes are poisoned or killed during Putin's 20 years in energy. Recent high-profile instances include the use of a Novichok nerve representative to poison former KGB spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia from the U.K.. However, Navalny's possible poisoning also brings to mind the targeted killing of Kremlin critic and former spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died after drinking tea which was laced with polonium-210 in a London hotel.
Navalny's wife, Yulia, has sent a letter to the Kremlin officially asking approval to evacuate him. An emergency medical plane is waiting to take the politician out of a hospital at Omsk to specialists in Germany. But doctors at Omsk Emergency Hospital No. 1 say that his illness is too unstable to permit for traveling. She was traveling with the opposition figure Thursday when he suddenly fell ill.
A clearly defeated Yulia Navalny talked to the media away from the hospital, calling the problem"outrageous" and saying that it's"clear authorities are trying to hide something . We demand they let's take him to doctors we hope," according to a translation by writer Oliver Carroll of The Independent.
German doctors in Omsk were permitted to visit the hospital on Friday -- but Yulia Navalny wasn't permitted to speak to them, and witnesses say the doctors were whisked from their centre and driven from a vehicle. Security and police officials blocked journalists and people from Navalny's camp from approaching the vehicle.
Yarmysh submitted a video from inside the hospital revealing exactly what she said were officers turning Yulia Navalny away when she moved in search of the physicians.
Following the German physicians left, Yarmysh stated through Twitter they had determined Navalny can be safely moved to Berlin through the specially equipped plane. "The German NGO had previously airlifted Pussy Riot activist Pyotr Verzilov into Germany after he suffered a suspected poisoning in 2018."
On Friday, Alexander Murakhovsky, the chief physician at the Omsk hospital, said the staff has diagnosed Navalny with a metabolic disorder, linked to a fall in blood sugar.
"This is actually contradictory information since officials have told Navalny's colleagues that, in fact, a poisonous substance was discovered and that it's so poisonous that folks around him have to wear protective suits," NPR's Lucian Kim reports.
The analysis introduces a paradox, says Navalny's physician, Anastasy Vasilyeva, that flew to Omsk on Thursday. If Navalny is suffering from a blood glucose imbalance rather than exposure to a potentially lethal toxin, she says, why not let him be transferred to Berlin's Charité hospital?
Accusing Murakhovsky of all"mean-spirited doublespeak," Vasilyeva said via Twitter that the metabolic disease was brought on by poison -- and she provided her own explanation for its delay in approving his transfer.
"If he has been diagnosed with simply a metabolic disease, why not allow Alexei go to Berlin? This is because they're waiting for three times that his system clears the toxin and it will become impossible to discover in Europe the existence of a poisonous substance in his body," Vasilyeva explained, according to a translation by the Interfax news agency.
The two Vasilyeva and Yarmysh are posting images from inside the Omsk hospital, wanting to counter officials who state conditions that there are not any worse than in the Charité clinic. Their photos show battered walls and hallways, and states that look to be less than pristine.
Navalny's aides and family say he had been poisoned if he drank tea at an airport at Tomsk before shooting off for Moscow Thursday morning.
Navalny, 44, is a powerful force for Russia's resistance, with a huge online following that has grown despite scant coverage of him in state-approved media channels. He rose to fame by investigating corruption and mobilizing against Putin's regime -- and he attempted to operate against Putin from the 2018 presidential election but was barred from doing so.
This is the second time Navalny has possibly been contested. The first instance came last summer, when he was hospitalized days after being detained for calling for street protests.
A number of Kremlin foes are poisoned or killed during Putin's 20 years in energy. Recent high-profile instances include the use of a Novichok nerve representative to poison former KGB spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia from the U.K.. However, Navalny's possible poisoning also brings to mind the targeted killing of Kremlin critic and former spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died after drinking tea which was laced with polonium-210 in a London hotel.