Alexei Navalny’s assassination attempt: – The doctor tried to shut up: “Shameful”

Suddenly, he started screaming in pain. The panicked fellow passengers became anxious. Someone started filming. The scream hardly sounded human, but it came from Alexei Navalny. The Russian activist and politician, known as “Putin’s staunch enemy”, has fallen seriously ill.

The plane he was on was from Tomsk, in Siberia, bound for Moscow, but he had to make an emergency medical landing in Omsk, also in Siberia. There, Navalny was removed from the plane, and on a stretcher he was taken to an ambulance waiting on the runway.

Pictures spread around the world on August 20, 2022.

It reveals the behind-the-scenes drama

With the exception of the FSB death squad and high-ranking figures in Vladimir Putin’s regime, no one at this time knew that Navalny had been the victim of an assassination attempt.

With the Russian novichok nerve agent, which was allegedly placed on Navalny’s underwear, the Russian activist was put on trial for several days.

It was Navalny himself, in collaboration with drilling site Bellingcat, who revealed that the death squad was trying to kill him.

The fact that it was a Novichok was first proven by a hospital in Berlin, where Navalny was eventually evacuated, and then by various laboratories in Europe, later.

But Putin’s regime has long tried to prevent Navalny from being hospitalized in Berlin, according to intensive care doctor Alexander Poluban.

In an interview with Medusa, an independent Russian online newspaper, tells Poluban About the drama that unfolded behind the scenes while Navalny was in a coma in a hospital in Omsk.

– They agreed

When Navalny collapsed and was taken to hospital in Omsk, Poluban was contacted by the activist’s organization. A German organization was ready to evacuate Navalny to Germany and the Charité hospital in Berlin.

They have now asked an intensive care doctor, Poluban, to travel to Omsk to determine whether Navalny’s evacuation out of Russia was medically sound.

He accepted Poluban and traveled to Siberia.

Early on, it became clear to Poluban that Navalny had been poisoned.

– When we got there, we were advised to use disposable gloves. A woman was tasked with making sure that we immediately took them off properly and that we didn’t get too close to Navalny. At the time I didn’t think much of it. Nor is the diagnosis. My job was to assess whether he could be evacuated. But in general, the clinical picture coincided with poisoning, Poluban told Meduza.

Other doctors at the hospital, who publicly thought the crash might have been caused by low blood sugar, agreed:

– In confidential conversations, they also agreed that this could be about poisoning, says the intensive care doctor.

Try gagging

Once Poluban realized that Navalny might have been poisoned, the intensive care doctor realized that the Russian authorities no He wanted to let Navalny leave the country, he says.

– At some point I was summoned and told that a decision had been made at the “highest level” not to transfer the patient (Navalny, journal.amn.), And that I should not dare to take anything from him elsewhere, Poluban tells Meduza.

Poluban tried to argue: It was a German organization, not him, that wanted Navalny’s eviction.

“I will die”

– I tried to say that I was appointed only to assess whether medical evacuation is possible. Then I was told that I had to tell Navalny’s family that he could not be taken anywhere else. Pulupan told Medusa if I said otherwise, there would be “dire consequences”, but they never specified what they meant by this.

The intensive care physician defied the warnings. As much as Poluban managed to remain discreet, he told Navalny’s wife, Julia, that it would be wiser to take Navalny to Germany.

He also said that it was “Moscow” that tried to back down.

“shameful affair”

This has been the position of the Russian authorities for a long time. They must be convinced that Navalny’s evacuation to Germany would not be medically sound.

So this may explain why the Russian authorities themselves invited doctors from the German organization to the hospital to examine Navalny.

– But the German doctors did not see any problems with evacuation. Soon a discussion took place between the German doctors and the Russian side, where he presented “our point of view” on this matter. I left these discussions. I had neither the desire nor the strength to participate in this shameful affair, says Boluban.

Putin is mentally ill

On August 22, two days after he fell on a passenger plane, Navalny was taken aboard a German ambulance.

Polupan stopped.

The more he read about the so-called OrganophosphatesPoluban, a type of organophosphorous compound that could be used as a nerve agent, became more convinced that Navalny must have been poisoned.

– A few days later, he said, the Berlin hospital confirmed this.

– I got hacked

When Poluban returned to Russia and Moscow, he began to feel the “presence” of the FSB.

– It wasn’t particularly scary, but after I returned, the FSB started hacking my letters and social media. It was completely open. The funny thing was that they hacked into my Yandex user, Poluban says.

Yandex is Russia’s answer to Google, but it also offers services similar to the US Uber. It is by far the most popular taxi service in Russia.

He may have swallowed the poison himself

– From their digital device, they logged into my Yandex user, but forgot to log out. The result was that I could see what taxi trips they took with my user. From their homes to the FSB building, or to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is how I found out, for example, that an FSB employee lives in the Ljubertsy region. Poluban says he took a taxi to and from the FSB offices every morning.

After an extended stay in Germany, Navalny returned to Russia in 2021. He has since been imprisoned.