Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who remains in a medically induced coma after what his supporters suspect was a poisoning, is facing no serious threat to his life and his condition is improving, his spokeswoman said today.
Mr Navalny, 44, was airlifted to Germany last Saturday after collapsing during a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. He is in a medically induced coma in a Berlin hospital.
"There has been some improvement in the symptoms," Berlin's renowned Charite hospital said in a statement today.
German doctors have said tests on the politician and anti-corruption campaigner indicate that he was poisoned, and his allies have pointed the finger of blame at President Vladimir Putin.
Germany has said it would be ready to impose diplomatic sanctions against Russia if it concludes that Russian state agencies were behind the poisoning of Mr Navalny, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said today.
"Concerning Russia's readiness to clear up the case of Navalny we will act like we did in the case of the Tiergarten murder," Mr Maas said, referring to Germany's expulsion of Russian embassy employees over Moscow's lack of cooperation in a probe into the murder of a Georgian man in a Berlin park.
Mr Navalny fell ill on a plane to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk last Thursday and spent two days in a Russian clinic in a coma before being transferred to Berlin's Charite hospital.
Medics there said on Monday they do not know the exact substance involved but that Mr Navalny was apparently poisoned with a substance that inhibits the cholinesterase enzyme, a feature of nerve agents.
His allies say he may have been poisoned by a cup of tea he drank at Tomsk airport.
Yesterday, Russia announced it had launched a police "check" into Mr Navalny's illness and has asked German medics treating him to share his medical records.
International calls have been mounting for an independent inquiry into the case, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the police check as routine, saying: "there is no basis for an investigation".
"Nothing has changed, we still don't have any understanding of what caused the state the sick man is now in," he told journalists.
