Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s health warrants ‘justified, grave concern,’ says his adviser

Vladimir Milov: There is a grave danger to his health, which is pretty unusual to expect because I’ve seen many hunger strikes before and usually after that, almost three weeks into a hunger strike, the condition of a person who does it must be essentially very bad. So, we [have] got to do something urgently to save him.

We know some bits and pieces and fragments of information. First, we know his reports about his health condition, how he feels [about] himself. There were some of the medical test results provided to his team somehow by the penal colony. So, we know generally bits and pieces of information. Bottom line, the main conclusion from that is that there is a justified grave concern for his health. And some of the medics have been commenting [on] it, going as far as saying that he could die in a minute. 

I’m very severely worried for two reasons. First, we now clearly see that there are symptoms that he is not fully recovered from the Novichok poisoning. Some symptoms like numbness in the hands, not in the legs, but in the hands of Navalny, show that there is no connection with the back pain. This is probably some residual effect from his poisoning. Point number two is, he’s been firmly denied real, normal medical treatment since he first complained about his health condition. All of that combined, this is all increasing our concern because it means that some foul play involved, the authorities have something to hide.  

It’s dangerous, it’s very dangerous because, listen, I’ve seen many of my friends, colleagues being either murdered, like Boris Nemtsov, or facing murder attempts, sometimes more than one, like Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was poisoned twice. We all face continuous threats of being arrested, intimidated, physically assaulted. It’s really dangerous.

But on the bright side of things, I have to say that when you’re in Russia, and you were a prominent opposition figure, you’re being approached by many people on the streets, in transportation, in stores during the day who say, “Listen, we saw you on YouTube, we know what you’re doing, we know you’re part of Navalny’s team, we greatly appreciate and support what you do, we’re all against Putin.”

So, there is a major movement, a bottom-up, grassroots movement in Russia, emerging for defending the normal future, the freedom of our country against Putin’s regime. So, Navalny and his team, we really did a lot in the past four years to force this great awakening of the Russian people, which is happening right now. So, danger is one thing, but there is also the positive, the bright side, which tells you that Russia has a future, a normal democratic future.

First, we are very grateful for solidarity expressed by various members of the international democratic community. However, I think in terms of Western governments, response is a bit too slow because they say that, yeah, there will be consequences if Navalny dies, but that might happen any minute now. So, some stronger action is needed. If there is real solidarity just beyond words we still hope for, something of that is going to happen. We have been talking to American officials multiple times and there’s one clear issue which I think is broadly supported by the Russian public itself — sanctions against Kremlin-linked oligarchs and financiers, enablers who actually keep and control the stolen money. That’s not OK that Putin and his clique continue to rob Russia and safely store stolen money in the West. It has to be stopped. We want to see action. And I think it’s going to be hugely supported by masses of [the] Russian population because oligarchs are universally hated in Russia much more than anything else.