Putin Opponent Alexei Navalny Reportedly Poisoned by ‘Toxin’ in His Tea

Alexei Navalny, the prominent Russian anti-corruption activist and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, was reportedly “poisoned with a toxin” and rushed in an unconscious state to the hospital on Wednesday night, according to his press secretary. “This morning Navalny was returning to Moscow from Tomsk. On the flight he started feeling ill. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. Alexei has been poisoned with a toxin. Right now we’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital,” tweeted press secretary Kira Yarmish, who later said her boss was in the ICU. “We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea. That was the only thing he drank this morning. The doctors say that the toxin was absorbed more quickly because of the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious,” she added.Moscow Cops Raid Offices of Putin Opponent Alexei Navalny, Who Just Won’t Quit“A year ago, when Alexei was in a detention center, he was poisoned. Obviously, now they’ve done the same thing to him again.”Last July, during one of Navalny’s stints in prison, he fell ill—raising questions about whether he had been poisoned.A jail staffer told the opposition leader’s wife, who had arrived for a visit, that an ambulance had rushed him to the hospital with “some kind of strong allergic reaction” that caused his eyes and face to turn red and swell up.“We are extremely worried about Alexei, it could be some chemical agent sprayed in his cell or on his bed,” Yarmish told The Daily Beast at the time.In October, the Kremlin designated the nonprofit group founded by Navalny, the Foundation for Fighting Corruption, as a foreign agent—a move seen as an effort to hinder its activities. That was just weeks after police special forces raided the group’s offices and seized computers and other items. Navalny, who had been jailed dozens of times over the previous decade, filmed video of his lawyers coolly playing soccer in the office, cementing his nerves-of-steel reputation.“We are fearless and unstoppable, no matter how harsh the pressure is from Putin’s thuggish government,” Navalny had told The Daily Beast earlier in the year.The alleged poisoning comes just weeks after Navalny leveled corruption accusations against Svetlana Radionova, a Kremlin environmental inspector, citing documents that tied her to luxurious real estate in Moscow and Nice. “Such wealth cannot be explained. It is so outrageous,” Navalny said in a report on YouTube, which was viewed by more than 3 million people.This story is developing.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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