Leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny is battling for his life in a Siberian hospital after a suspected poisoning as Germany prepares to dispatch an air ambulance to bring him to Europe for treatment.
Mr Navalny, a 44-year-old lawyer and anti-corruption campaigner who is among President Vladimir Putin's fiercest critics, was hospitalised in the city of Omsk after he lost consciousness on a flight and his plane made an emergency landing.
"Doctors aren't just doing everything possible. The doctors are really working now on saving his life," the hospital's deputy head doctor Anatoly Kalinichenko told journalists in Omsk.
Mr Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said he was on a ventilator in a coma and his condition was serious but stable.
"Alexei has toxic poisoning," Ms Yarmysh wrote on Twitter, describing how he was taken ill during the flight from the city of Tomsk to Moscow.
An ambulance is parked outside the hospital intensive care unit where Alexei Navalny is hospitalized in Omsk, Russia. Source: AP
The hospital has not given any diagnosis while the regional health ministry said Mr Navalny was in a natural, not induced, coma.
His team said the hospital was ill-equipped and his doctor Anastasia Vasilyeva said she had asked for the Kremlin's help to transfer him to a European clinic.
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel joined French President Emmanuel Macron in expressing concern over Mr Navalny's condition and said he could receive treatment in Germany or France.
"I hope that he can recover and naturally whether it be in France or in Germany he can receive from us all the help and medical support needed," Ms Merkel said in a joint news conference with Macron.
A German group said it was sending an air ambulance with medical equipment and specialists to Russia to pick up Mr Navalny.
"We are in contact with the authorities and hope that all permits for the transport and a medical report for the coma patient will be given tonight," said Jaka Bizilj, who heads the Cinema For Peace foundation.
Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov wished Mr Navalny a "speedy recovery" adding that the Kremlin would help move him abroad if needed.
Mr Peskov said claims of poisoning were "only assumptions" until tests proved otherwise.
Ms Yarmysh claimed Putin was responsible for poisoning Mr Navalny, saying: "Whether or not he gave the order personally, the blame lies with him."
Amnesty International urged Russia to hold a "prompt and independent investigation".
Something in his tea
Mr Navalny's wife Yulia arrived in the city about 2,200 kilometres east of Moscow and visited him.
Ms Yarmysh said police and investigators had also arrived and journalists reported seeing FSB security service agents at the hospital.
"We think that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed in his tea. That was the only thing he drank in the morning," Ms Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.
She told the Echo of Moscow radio station that she was "sure it was intentional poisoning".
State news agency TASS cited a law enforcement source questioning this.
"We can't rule out that he drank or took something himself yesterday," the source said, a claim Ms Yarmysh dismissed as "complete rubbish".
She said Mr Navalny had been swimming in a river the night before and was "sober".
Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya said that Mr Navalny had "hundreds of enemies including some hardened individuals", pointing to his anti-corruption investigations that attract millions of views online.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab tweeted he was "deeply concerned" while EU foreign affairs high representative Josep Borrell wrote that if the suspected poisoning was confirmed "those responsible must be held to account".
US whistleblower Edward Snowden, granted asylum by Moscow, tweeted that a confirmed poisoning would be a "crime against the whole of Russia".
Muscovites said they suspected Mr Navalny was poisoned over his political views.
"I think this is a deliberate attempt on his life because he has fought so fiercely with the government lately," said 18-year-old student Yaroslav Lyangasov.
