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[webfact]

Putin opponent Navalny posts photo from hospital, plans to return to Russia

By Alexander Marrow

 

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his family members pose for a picture at Charite hospital in Berlin, Germany, in this undated image obtained from social media September 15, 2020. Courtesy of Instagram @NAVALNY/Social Media via REUTERS

 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny shared a photograph from a Berlin hospital on Tuesday, sitting up in bed and surrounded by his family, and said he could now breathe independently after being poisoned in Siberia last month.

 

The photo - the strongest evidence yet of Navalny's advancing recovery after emerging from a coma last week - was swiftly followed by confirmation from his press spokeswoman that he planned to return to Russia.

 

"Hi, this is Navalny. I miss you all," he wrote in the caption to his Instagram followers. "I can still hardly do anything, but yesterday I could breathe all day on my own. Actually on my own."

 

The leading opponent of President Vladimir Putin, fell violently sick while campaigning on Aug. 20 and was airlifted to Berlin. Germany says laboratory tests in three countries have determined he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, and Western governments have demanded an explanation from Russia.

 

Moscow has called the accusations groundless. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Tuesday that Moscow was open to clearing up what happened to Navalny, but needed access to information on his case from Berlin.

 

He said Moscow did not understand why, if French and Swedish laboratories had been able to test his medical samples, Russia was not being given the same access.

 

The case has further strained relations between Russia and the West, already at a post-Cold War low since Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and the attempted poisoning of a former Russian double agent with the same Novichok nerve agent in England in 2018.

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced calls to punish Russia by suspending work on Nord Stream 2, a nearly completed pipeline bringing gas from Russia to Germany.

 

'NO OTHER OPTIONS'

The photograph showed Navalny looking towards the camera, with his wife Yulia supporting him with her arms and their two children looking on.

 

The New York Times on Tuesday quoted a German security official as saying Navalny had spoken to a German prosecutor about the incident and said he planned to return to Russia as soon as he recovered.

 

Confirming the report, Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter: "No other options were ever considered."

 

Asked for comment, Peskov said: "Any citizen of the Russian Federation is free to leave Russia and return to Russia. If a citizen of the Russian Federation recovers his health, then of course everyone will be happy about that."

 

The Kremlin has for years regarded Navalny with contempt. In a rare departure from his normal practice of referring to "the Berlin patient", Peskov spoke the opposition leader's name on Tuesday.

 

Navalny, 44, has not been allowed to form a political party but has riled Putin for the past decade with detailed campaigns exposing official corruption, bypassing the state-controlled media by using Instagram and YouTube.

 

In his social media post, he even attempted a flash of humour, saying that breathing naturally was "an amazing process, underestimated by many. I'd recommend it."

 

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov, Anton Zverev and Katya Golubkova, writing by Mark Trevelyan, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-09-16

 

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[Jack Mountain]

They say a warned man count as twice so mayby next election he will cross the 1% boundery of votes. Maybe not. LOL

Edited September 15, 2020 by Jack Mountain

[JoePai]

Brave man

[nemo38]

This reminds me of an old political comedy where they get their own sniper to shoot the President in order to boost his ratings.

 

Do people think Putin is a CIA agent, doing this to create an anti-Russian reaction?

 

[Morch]

 

@nemo38

 

And the usual conspiracy theories are up....

[eliasz]

if all these Novichok weird poisonings would be real, then western countries would do court examination, but they do not do it, just some words in media with a lot of contradictions
Also that poison is super strong, but nobody died from it

[Morch]

7 minutes ago, eliasz said:

if all these Novichok weird poisonings would be real, then western countries would do court examination, but they do not do it, just some words in media with a lot of contradictions
Also that poison is super strong, but nobody died from it

 

So guess you wouldn't have issues volunteering to test the stuff?

[Proboscis]

8 hours ago, Jack Mountain said:

They say a warned man count as twice so mayby next election he will cross the 1% boundery of votes. Maybe not. LOL

I wonder how much they pay you at the Russian Troll factory? Navalny is a braver man than you, as you hide behind your fake identity and he puts his life and liberty on the line.

[Phoenix Rising]

6 hours ago, nemo38 said:

This reminds me of an old political comedy where they get their own sniper to shoot the President in order to boost his ratings.

 

Do people think Putin is a CIA agent, doing this to create an anti-Russian reaction?

 

You got it all wrong. It's trump who is Putin's asset and Putin doesn't give a rat's behind what people in the West think of him. That's the advantage of being a de facto dictator.

[natway09]

A very brave or silly man. I cannot decide

[Redline]

5 hours ago, eliasz said:

if all these Novichok weird poisonings would be real, then western countries would do court examination, but they do not do it, just some words in media with a lot of contradictions
Also that poison is super strong, but nobody died from it

People have died-do your research

Edited September 16, 2020 by Redline

[Scott]

Post and reply with an unapproved source has been removed.