Finnish President Sauli Niinisto discussed the treatment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny during a telephone conversation on August 21 with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. This is reported by the Finnish publication Yle.
So, Niinisto was interested in whether it is possible to send Navalny to a German clinic. The Russian President assured that there are no political obstacles to transporting the opposition leader to Germany, but he may have to stay in Russia because of the risk to his health during transportation.
The Finnish leader added that he had agreed to raise the issue during a conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He did not speculate whether his call was a factor in the Russian side agreeing to Navalny’s relocation.
The phone conversation was initiated by Niinisto. The leaders also discussed the situation in Belarus and some topical issues of Russian-Finnish relations.
On the afternoon of August 22, the opposition leader was taken to a Berlin clinic. Doctors assess the patient’s condition as stable.
Navalny became ill in the morning of August 20 during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, the plane urgently landed in Omsk, from where the founder of FBK was taken by ambulance to the Department of Toxicological resuscitation. As a preliminary diagnosis made him “poisoning by unidentified psychodisleptics” (hallucinogen). Navalny’s press Secretary claimed that on the day of departure, He did not eat anything and only drank tea in a coffee shop at the Tomsk airport