Prominent Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny suddenly became critically ill on August 20, onboard a passenger jet destined for Moscow soon after takeoff from the western Siberian city of Tomsk. The pilot made an emergency landing in the nearby city of Omsk. An ambulance was waiting on the tarmac and took Navalny to a local hospital. Russian medical authorities announced the anti-corruption blogger and one-time mayoral candidate had not been poisoned but was suffering from some natural disorder, possibly a fluctuation in his sugar levels. Purportedly, no toxins were found in samples of Navalny’s body fluids, either by the local Omsk laboratory or a lab in Moscow. But two medics who had contact with Navalny in Omsk, who requested to remain anonymous, told liberal news site Meduza that Navalny displayed several typical symptoms of nerve agent poisoning and was treated with atropine – a classic nerve agent antidote – with the first shot of the therapy administered in the ambulance at the Omsk airport, which may have saved his life. Later, at the Omsk hospital, Navalny lapsed into a coma. The atropine treatment was discontinued after the official diagnosis refuted a poisoning. Navalny, nonetheless, survived, hooked up to a ventilator.
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German army emergency personnel load into their ambulance the stretcher that was used to transport Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny on August 22, 2020 at Berlin's Charite hospital, where Navalny will be treated after his medical evacuation to Germany following a suspected poisoning. Navalny was critically ill in a hospital in Siberia after a suspected poisoning, a small Berlin-based NGO has been leading the charge to bring him from hospital in the city of Omsk to Germany for treatment.
