The health of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is deteriorating as he keeps up his hunger strike in prison, his lawyers said Wednesday, with US President Joe Biden's administration saying it is "disturbed" by the reports.
Last Wednesday President Vladimir Putin's most prominent opponent, who is serving two and a half years on embezzlement charges, launched a hunger strike to demand proper medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs.
Members of Mr Navalny's defence team, who visited him in his penal colony in the town of Pokrov 100 kilometres east of Moscow on Wednesday, said he is now losing sensation in his hands and is coughing while still refusing food.
"He looks bad, he's not feeling well," lawyer Olga Mikhailova told AFP, adding Mr Navalny now weighs "around 80" kilograms.
Mr Navalny, who is 189 centimetres tall, weighed 93 kilograms when he arrived in his penal colony last month.
"No one is going to treat him," Ms Mikhailova added.
Mr Navalny's lawyers and allies are demanding that he be transferred to a "normal" hospital but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Mr Navalny is not entitled to any special treatment.
White House 'disturbed'
Another member of the opposition politician's team, Vadim Kobzev, said that the 44-year-old Mr Navalny was losing a kilogram a day.
Taking to Twitter, Mr Kobzev said: "Alexei is walking himself. He feels pain while walking. It is very concerning that the illness is clearly progressing in terms of losing sensation in his legs, palms and wrists".
In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said: "We are disturbed by reports that Mr Navalny's health is worsening."
Ms Psaki added that Washington considers Mr Navalny's imprisonment "politically motivated and a gross injustice."
Russia's treatment of Mr Navalny is one of many sticking points between the new Biden administration and the Kremlin, along with concerns about Moscow's actions in Ukraine, alleged interference in US elections and purported bounties on US troops in Afghanistan.
The tough approach is in contrast to that of former president Donald Trump, who voiced admiration for Mr Putin even as his administration kept adding sanctions.
After his lawyers' visit, Mr Navalny released a new post on Instagram, saying prison officials were putting candy in his pockets and frying chicken to taunt him.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gestures inside a glass cage prior to a hearing at the Babushkinsky District Court in Moscow, Russia, 20 February 2021. Source: AAP
He said officials still refused to tell him his diagnosis and were not allowing him to be treated by a doctor of his choice.
'Epic battle'
Mr Navalny said tens of thousands of people - both inside and outside of Russian prisons - are "literally dying without medical help" and that thought increased his resolve.
"They are not known, no one will defend them, no one will think about them, no one will challenge this deceitful and inhuman system on their behalf," Mr Navalny wrote.
"And I immediately win this epic battle in which my spirit is standing up to the prison chicken," he quipped.
Earlier this week, Mr Navalny said he had a cough and fever and that three members of his prison unit had been hospitalised with tuberculosis.
He was arrested in January after returning from Germany, where he spent months recovering from a poisoning attack with Novichok nerve agent he blames on the Kremlin.
He is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for breaching the parole terms of a suspended sentence on old fraud charges.
Rights campaigners say the Pokrov penal colony is known for its especially harsh conditions, and Mr Navalny himself has called it a "concentration camp."
