Russia's Navalny leaves German hospital after 32 days

By Rabia Iclal Turan

ANKARA (AA) - Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was released on Tuesday from Berlin’s Charite Hospital.

“The patient’s condition had improved sufficiently for him to be discharged from acute inpatient care,” the hospital said in a statement.

While a complete recovery is possible, it is to early to gauge the potential long-term effects of the severe poisoning, the statement added.

Navalny, 44, and a critic of Russian President Putin, was in a German hospital for treatment for severe poisoning since Aug. 22.

He fell ill on Aug. 20 on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk, and Navalny was rushed to a hospital where he spent two days before being sent to Berlin for treatment.

Berlin says a chemical nerve agent was used on Navalny, a charge Moscow denies.

The nerve agent Novichok was previously involved in the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal, an ex-Russian spy, and his daughter in England, another case in which the Kremlin was implicated.