Jailed Kremlin critic Navalny loses sensation in hands: Lawyers

The Russian opposition leader’s health is deteriorating as he keeps up his hunger strike in prison, his lawyers say.

The health of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is deteriorating as he keeps up his hunger strike in prison, with a new numbness in his hands, according to his lawyers. The development came on Wednesday, a week after President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent – who is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on embezzlement charges – stopped taking food to demand proper medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs. Members of Navalny’s defence team, who on Wednesday visited him in his penal colony in the town of Pokrov 100km (60 miles) east of the capital, Moscow, said he was still refusing to eat and was coughing.