Putin Critic Alexei Navalny Who Opposed Russian Leader's War In Ukraine Is Ill, Struggling For Medicine In Isolation Cell?

The wife of Russia’s famous opposition leader, Alexei A. Navalny, claimed her husband is currently very ill and struggling to get medical care in prison. Yulia Navalny has also made accusations that her husband is being abused even while running a fever, and has urged prison officials to provide him with medical care. Her plea followed a public display of dissent from doctors urging the Russian president to stop abusing the imprisoned oppositionist. Navalny, whose unrelenting criticism of Vladimir Putin in the past sparked numerous protests that caused him to be repeatedly jailed and recently imprisoned for violating the terms of his parole.

The New York Times said Navalny’s wife wrote on social media claiming her ailing husband was enduring abuse as authorities placed another sickly inmate in his 3-meter cell with the intention of worsening his condition. She said it was like adding the flu on top of your cold. Yulia also claimed that the guards were forcing Alexei to wake up around 6 a.m. and preventing him from reclining in his bed while nursing his fever.

Back in August 2020, Navalny survived an assassination attempt in which his underwear was laced with the deadly nerve agent known as Novichok. Navalny was brought to Germany for treatment and managed to recover. Upon his recovery, he returned to Russia in early 2021 but was arrested on charges of violating one of his parole terms and sentenced to two years in prison, where he is now serving. While recovering in Berlin, he and his team were able to discover the identity of his would-be assassins, who later confessed to tainting his clothing with the deadly poison.

Navalny’s health deterioration was said to be the result of the harsh conditions he was forced to endure while in prison. In December of last year, Navalny posted on Twitter saying he believed authorities were intentionally worsening his health as a ploy to get him to submit. He added that prison officials refused to give him his medical records. Later, he took to Twitter and posted in a sarcastic manner that his “fancy New Year’s plans were ruined” but was able to celebrate with a bag of potato chips he had saved and a can of saury.