Alexei Navalny praises Russian pilots and paramedics

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has thanked Russian pilots and paramedics for acting quickly after he fell into a coma on a flight from Siberia.

He is recovering in Germany from what authorities there determined to be nerve agent poisoning.

Mr Navalny, who collapsed on a plane to Moscow on August 20 and spent nearly three weeks in a coma, said in an Instagram post on Friday that pilots “quickly landed the plane in Omsk”.

He added medical workers at the airport “jammed a dose of atropine” into him, immediately recognising “a toxic poisoning”.

“Thank you, unknown good-hearted friends,” the 44-year-old politician wrote under a photo of him hugging his wife Yulia.

“You are good people.”

German chemical weapons experts determined he was poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok – findings corroborated by labs in France and Sweden.

Mr Navalny, a long-time foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was discharged from the hospital earlier this week.

The Charite hospital said that based on Navalny’s progress, a “complete recovery is possible”.

Russian authorities have been resisting international pressure to launch a criminal investigation, saying no trace of poisonous substances was found in Mr Navalny’s system and demanding Germany, France and Sweden to share their findings.

The Russian delegation to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) sent a note to Germany on Wednesday requesting “comprehensive information on the so-called Navalny case”, including “test results, biological materials and other clinical samples” to be provided within 10 days.

German government spokeswoman Martina Fietz confirmed on Friday that the Germany mission to the OPCW received the note.

“But let me repeat again what we have said here repeatedly in the past – Russia already has everything necessary to be able to conduct investigations itself,” Ms Fietz added.

She once again pointed out that German, Swedish and French labs have confirmed Mr Navalny was poisoned with Novichok and the OPCW has taken samples.

Mr Navalny has remained in Germany to undergo rehabilitation after being released from the hospital, which may take weeks, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.

Nevertheless, he plans to return to Russia at some point, according to his allies.

Mr Navalny’s team blamed the Kremlin for the poisoning, claims which officials brushed off.

In Friday’s Instagram post, the politician said “a series of happy coincidences and sharp actions” by pilots and medical workers sabotaged what he thought may have been “the plan of the killers”.

“I was supposed to fall sick 20 minutes after take-off and in another 15 minutes lose consciousness,” he said.

“There was guaranteed to be no access to medical help and in another hour I would continue travelling in a black plastic bag on the last row of seats, scaring all passengers going to the bathroom.

“Everything that happened next was very dramatic and deserves a separate story but there would have been nothing to tell if not for these guys.”