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EU top diplomats to discuss situation around Navalny on Monday - agency

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called on the Russian authorities to provide "adequate medical assistance" to Alexey Navalny whose health condition had deteriorated

© AP Photo/Virginia Mayo

MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. EU foreign ministers will discuss on Monday the situation around Russian blogger Alexey Navalny, who is serving his sentence in a penal colony in the Vladimir region, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on Sunday.

France Presse cited his interview with the German newspaper Bild when he called on the Russian authorities to provide "adequate medical assistance" to Navalny whose health condition had deteriorated.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian made a similar statement earlier on Sunday, saying he was "extremely worried."

Navalny, who received suspended sentences for embezzlement twice, was wanted in Russia for repeated violations of conditions of his conviction in the Yves Rocher case. On January 17, 2021 he was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport upon arrival from Berlin. On February 2, Moscow’s Simonovsky Court replaced Navalny’s three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence with real jail time due to multiple probation violations. Navalny is serving his sentence in penal colony number 2 in the Vladimir region.

On April 5, the blogger was taken to the colony’s medial unit with symptoms of an acute respiratory disease. According to the Federal Penitentiary Service’s Vladimir region department, Navalny was brought back to the prison cell on April 9 after he had felt better. According to the agency, neither tuberculosis no coronavirus infection was confirmed. Doctors said his health conditions was satisfactory.

The Russian foreign ministry said earlier that ultimatum demands to Russia voiced by a number of countries and a media campaign around Navalny were geared solely towards destabilization of the political situation in Russia.

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Kazakh president warns against misinformation, provocations about plane crash near Aktau

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US, UK special services plotting terror attacks on Russia’s bases in Syria — intel agency

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