Moscow(SONNA)-Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny said he’s on a clear road to recovery, “although not a short one,” and thanked his doctors in Germany in an Instagram post Saturday.
A month after falling sick on a plane bound for Moscow from a campaign trip in Siberia, poisoned with what Germany identified as the weapons-grade nerve agent Novichok, Navalny said he can now identify people and remember words. But he can’t yet perform tasks such as using his phone or pouring himself a glass of water.
“Not long ago, I didn’t recognize people and didn’t understand how to talk,” Navalny said. “I also did not know how to express my despair and therefore simply kept silent.”
Navalny, who has built a following of millions with online videos exposing high-level corruption in Russia, returned to social media on Tuesday with a photograph of himself in a hospital bed, flanked by his wife and children. He joked that breathing on one’s own is “a surprising process, underestimated by many.”
His allies said Navalny, 44, planned to return to Russia. He was evacuated to Germany at his family’s insistence, over the objection of doctors in Omsk, where the plane he was on made an emergency landing. Russia hasn’t opened an investigation, saying the doctors found no proof he was poisoned. Germany has demanded an explanation from the Kremlin, and the incident has triggered a new downward spiral in Russia’s ties with Europe.
“Now I’m a guy whose legs are shaking when he walks up the stairs, but he thinks: ‘Oh, this is a staircase! People climb them. Maybe it’s better to find an elevator.’ And before, I would have just stood there and stared,” Navalny said in Saturday’s post.
