Poisoning of Alexei Navalny

A doctor for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, says his health is deteriorating rapidly and the 44-year-old Kremlin critic could be on the verge of death.

A doctor for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, says his health is deteriorating rapidly and the 44-year-old Kremlin critic could be on the verge of death.

The health of jailed Puitn's critic Alexei Navalny is deteriorating and he is beginning to lose sensation in his legs and hands, his lawyer says.

Vadim Kobzev said Navalny, who is in a penal colony serving a sentence for embezzlement, had been diagnosed with two spinal hernias.

Last week, Navalny started a hunger strike to demand proper treatment for acute back and leg pain.

Russia called its U.S. ambassador back to Moscow for consultations on March 17 after Joe Biden described Vladimir Putin as a "killer" who would "pay a price" for election meddling, prompting the first major diplomatic crisis for the new American president.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is serving a two-and-half-year jail term in a penal colony outside Moscow, said on March 15 he was locked up in a "real concentration camp".

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said late on Tuesday that new sanctions imposed by the United States were evidence of a "hostile anti-Russian lunge" and said it would retaliate to what it described as another blow to U.S.-Russia ties.

The United States on March 2 imposed sanctions on senior Russian officials in a coordinated action with the European Union as U.S. intelligence concluded that Moscow orchestrated the near fatal poisoning of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Ambassadors of 27 European Union nations have agreed further anti-Russian sanctions over the situation around Russian blogger Alexey Navalny, a source in one of the delegations told TASS on Monday.

New EU sanctions against Russia due to the situation around Alexey Navalny will be officially approved next week, President of the European Council Charles Michel said at a press conference following the first day of the EU online summit.

A Moscow judge on Feb. 20 upheld a ruling to jail top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, as he lost two court cases in one day and was headed for more than two years in a penal colony.