Allies urgently call for protests next week amid reports of imprisoned Navalny's deteriorating health

Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny could die "in a matter of days," his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Facebook on Saturday, NPR reports.
Navalny, who nearly died after a poisoning he has blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin last August, is currently being held in a notorious penal colony outside of Moscow, where he is three weeks into a hunger strike. His physician Yaroslav Ashikhmin said test results Navalny's family shared with him showed he was at increased risk of cardiac arrest because of elevated potassium levels, and that his kidneys were deteriorating. "Our patient could die at any moment," Ashikhmin said in a translated Facebook post, per NPR.
The Kremlin has prevented Navalny's personal doctors from seeing him and insists he's receiving adequate care. Andrei Kelin, Russia's ambassador to the United Kingdom, told BBC on Sunday that Navalny "will not be allowed to die in prison" and suggested the Kremlin critic was merely trying to "attract attention."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Navalny's allies put out an urgent call for his supporters to take to the streets en masse across Russia on Wednesday. Before the reports of Navalny's worsening condition, his team was determined to wait until 500,000 people had signed up to join the demonstration before announcing a date, but they've decided they can no longer wait for what they're calling "the final battle between good and neutrality." A "massive police crackdown" is expected in response, CNN's Bianna Golodryga reports. Read more at NPR.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
-
Store closings could accelerate throughout 2025
Under the Radar Major brands like Macy's and Walgreens are continuing to shutter stores
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Crossword: February 20, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sudoku hard: February 20, 2025
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
Ozempic can curb alcohol cravings, study finds
Speed read Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy may also be helpful in limiting alcohol consumption
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
New form of H5N1 bird flu found in US dairy cows
Speed Read This new form of bird flu is different from the version that spread through herds in the last year
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Microplastics accumulating in human brains, study finds
Speed Read The amount of tiny plastic particles found in human brains increased dramatically from 2016 to 2024
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
FDA approves painkiller said to thwart addiction
Speed Read Suzetrigine, being sold as Journavx, is the first new pharmaceutical pain treatment approved by the FDA in 20 years
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Study finds possible alternative abortion pill
Speed Read An emergency contraception (morning-after) pill called Ella could be an alternative to mifepristone for abortions
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
California declares bird flu emergency
Speed Read The emergency came hours after the nation's first person with severe bird flu infection was hospitalized
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Bird flu one mutuation from human threat, study finds
Speed Read A Scripps Research Institute study found one genetic tweak of the virus could enable its spread among people
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dark chocolate tied to lower diabetes risk
Speed Read The findings were based on the diets of about 192,000 US adults over 34 years
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published