Alexei Navalny doctors refuse to let Putin critic leave Russia

Opposition leader’s aide had urged hospital authorities not to interfere in efforts to take him out of the country for treatment

Doctors treating Alexei Navalny for a suspected poisoning have refused to release him for evacuation to a clinic abroad, sparking a standoff with his family and aides who say the Kremlin critic’s life is in danger in Russia.

The hospital’s decision was announced just an hour before a plane was due to arrive to evacuate Navalny to Berlin’s Charité hospital. Navalny is in a coma and on a ventilator in a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk, after collapsing on a flight on Thursday.

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