Daily US Times: The Berlin hospital treating Russia’s poisoned opposition figure Alexei Navalny says he is out of an induced coma and his condition has improved.
Doctors say the 44-year-old leader is responding to verbal stimuli. Alexei Navalny was flown to Germany after falling ill on a flight in Siberia in August.
His team says he was poisoned on orders from Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, but he denies involvement.
German doctors say the Russian opposition leader was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
The Charité hospital in Berlin said in a statement on Monday Mr Navalny was being weaned off mechanical ventilation.
It said: “He is responding to verbal stimuli. It remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning.”
The statement also said doctors were in close contact with Mr Navalny’s wife.
There is growing pressure in Germany for Chancellor Angela Markel to take a tougher stance over the incident. Last week, Ms Merkel said Mr Navalny was the victim of attempted murder and that the world would look to Russia for answers.
On Monday, a senior German MP demanded a halt to the Nord Stream gas pipeline, a huge energy project with Russia that would double the flow of Russian gas to Europe.
The Kremlin said on Monday it was “absurd” to blame Russia for Mr Navalny’s poisoning.
Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: “Attempts to somehow associate Russia with what happened are unacceptable to us, they are absurd.”
Maria Zakharova, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, has previously said the allegation that Novichok was used to poison the leader was not backed up by evidence.
A Novichok nerve agent was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018.
Mr Navalny is an anti-corruption campaigner and a vocal critic of President Putin who has led nationwide protests against the Russian authorities. He has called Mr Putin’s party a place of “crooks and thieves” that is “sucking the blood out of Russia”.
Meanwhile, Germany’s government says on Wednesday that Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a sophisticated nerve agent known as Novichok. It said toxicology tests at a military laboratory showed “unequivocal proof” of an agent from the Novichok group. The revelation makes this case even more serious than it already was.
Most importantly, it will increase suspicions that the Russian state was behind his poisoning, though Russia has been denying the allegation.
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