Navalny plans to return to Russia

FE Team | Published: September 16, 2020 22:36:25

Alexei Navalny is seen with his wife and children at a Berlin hospital — Internet

BERLIN, Sept 16 (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.