Russia’s most prominent opposition politician has been suffering from severe stomach cramps in jail, feared to be caused by poisoning.
Kira Yarmysh, Alexei Navalny's spokeswoman, tweeted that an ambulance was called last week to the maximum security IK-6 penal colony at Melekhovo, about 155 miles east of Moscow, where he is being held.
Ms Yarmysh wrote: "We do not rule out that all this time in prison he could have been poisoned with something to make his health deteriorate slowly but steadily."
She said he has lost over a stone in weight as the "severe" stomach pain meant he could not eat the prison food provided as it was making the pain worse and he has been banned from buying alternative food.
The 46-year-old is serving sentences totalling 11-and-a-half years on bogus charges including fraud and contempt of court.
Navalny was poisoned with novichok, a nerve agent, on a trip to Siberia in 2020 and flew to Germany for treatment. Following his return to Russia he was arrested.
Navalny and his team subsequently tracked who poisoned him and blamed Putin for the attack.
Repeated so-called offences at the jail have landed him in permanent solitary confinement.
Many fear Navalny’s health has reached a critical point and fears have led to a rare petition earlier from a group of Russian lawmakers and doctors who have used their full names to demand that he receive better medical care, despite the risk to them of being prosecuted for voicing dissent.
The Kremlin view him and his supporters as extremists who are intent on trying to destabilise Russia.
"His situation is critical, we are all very concerned,” Ruslan Shaveddinov, a close ally told the Guardian.
He continued: “Our theory is that they are gradually killing him, using slow-acting poison which is applied through food.
“It might sound like paranoia, but after the novichok poisoning, it seems completely plausible. He lost 8kg in two weeks, this hasn’t happened before and the doctors are not telling him why he is in so much pain."
Navalny’s lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, has demanded toxicological and other medical tests and complained to Russian authorities after the doctor who saw Navalny for the stomach pain gave no diagnosis.
Navalny is now serving his 13th stint in solitary confinement in a small, dark punishment cell. He is allowed a book and a cup, but the bunk bed is folded up during the day.
The cell dimensions are 10 feet by 6.5 feet.