Alexei Navalny, jailed Vladimir Putin critic, losing sensation in hands, say his lawyers

Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who is in jail, serving two and a half years on an embezzlement charge, is losing sensation in his hands, his lawyers said on Wednesday. 

Last Wednesday, Navalny launched a hunger strike to demand proper medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs.

Members of Navalny’s defence team, who visited him in his penal colony in the town of Pokrov 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Moscow on Wednesday, said he is still refusing food and was coughing.

“He looks bad, he’s not feeling well,” lawyer Olga Mikhailova told AFP, adding Navalny now weighs “around 80” kilogrammes (176 pounds).

Navalny, who is 189 centimetres (six feet two inches) tall, weighed 93 kilogrammes (205 pounds) when he arrived in his penal colony last month.

“No one is going to treat him,” Mikhailova added.

Navalny’s lawyers and allies are demanding that he be transferred to a “normal” hospital but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Navalny is not entitled to any special treatment.

Another member of the opposition politician’s team, Vadim Kobzev, said that 44-year-old Navalny was losing a kilogramme a day.

“It’s clear that his illness is getting worse,” Kobzev wrote.

Navalny was arrested in January after returning from Germany, where he spent months recovering from a poisoning attack with Novichok nerve agent he blames on the Kremlin.