Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny Poisoned

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny is in a coma and on a ventilator in a hospital in Siberia after falling ill from suspected poisoning during a flight, his spokeswoman said Thursday.

Kira Yarmysh said on Thursday that Navalny, 44, was flying from Siberia to Moscow after a work trip to Tomsk when his plane made an emergency landing after he fell ill.

He is now in grave condition in the intensive care unit for toxicology patients in Emergency Hospital No 1 in the Siberian city of Omsk, according to the TASS state news agency.

“Alexei has toxic poisoning,” she wrote on Twitter. “Alexei is now in intensive care.”

“We think that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed in his tea. That was the only thing he drank in the morning,” Yarmysh said. “Doctors say the poison was quickly absorbed through the hot liquid.”

She told the Echo Moskvy radio station that Navalny was sweating on the plane and asked her to talk to him so that he could “focus on a sound of a voice”. He then went to the bathroom and lost consciousness.

Navalny is in the intensive care unit for toxicology patients in Emergency Hospital No 1 in the Siberia city of Omsk, the TASS state news agency reported.

Navalny, 44, is in grave condition, TASS said, citing the head doctor of the hospital.

“Alexei is still unconscious. He was put under ventilator. Police were called to the hospital on our demand,” said Yarmysh.

Yarmysh said she believed the suspected poisoning was connected to this year’s regional election campaign.