Watchdog

The wife of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, who is currently in a medically induced coma in Berlin after being diagnosed with poisoning, has slammed a leading Russian physician as being little more than a stooge for President Vladimir Putin after he suggested creating a joint German-Russian expert group to assess the state of her husband's health.

Yulia Navalnaya wrote on Instagram on September 6 that medical institutions in Russia consider patients their "property," falsifying information they make public via the media while "deceiving relatives, not letting them see the patient and inventing rules at their own discretion, literally turning the hospital into an analogue of a Russian prison."

The sharp rebuke comes after 87-year-old physician Leonid Roshal, who in recent years has publicly supported Putin and his policies, said on September 5 that Russia's National Medical Chamber had called on Germany's Physicians Chamber (Aerztekammer) to create a joint group to evaluate Navalny's health.

German doctors and Navalny's relatives believe that the 44-yar-old politician was poisoned with the Soviet-style military-grade nerve agent known as Novichok while on a trip in Siberia, and that authorities most likely were behind the poisoning, which the Kremlin vehemently denies.

"Dr. Roshal, I would like to say that my husband is not your property. You did not have, do not have, and will not have anything to do with his treatment. All your pubic activities in recent years give me no reason to trust and respect you. You are not acting as a doctor, but as the voice of the state, and you do not want to help a patient whom you do not care about, but to find out information and curry favor for your boss. Do not take sin on your soul, especially at such a respectable age," Navalnaya wrote.

Navalny was brought to Berlin's Charite clinic from Siberia after he fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow in late August.

Germany has signaled that Berlin would push for new sanctions against Russia if Moscow fails to explain the poisoning of the Kremlin critic, including a possible shift in German policy regarding the nearly complete Baltic Sea pipeline known as Nord Stream 2, which would bring gas from Russia to Germany. Merkel has been under pressure from the United States and other Western countries to scrap the plan.

Asked on September 7 whether Chancellor Angela Merkel would protect the multibillion-euro pipeline if Germany were to seek sanctions over the Navalny case, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said: "The chancellor believes it would be wrong to rule anything out from the start."

Navalny's close associate Lyubov Sobol told RFE/RL on September 4 that she believes Navalny was poisoned either by Russia's Federal Security Service or by the Kremlin-connected powerful businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.

"Neither special services, nor Yevgeny Prigozhin could organize this poisoning without the direct order by [Russian President] Vladimir Putin," Sobol said, though she did not provide any concrete evidence of a connection.

Sobol believes the Kremlin would want to poison Navalny because of his Smart Voting campaign, which supports independent and opposition candidates in municipal elections scheduled for later this month.

She added that a wave of instability sparked by protests stretching from Belarus, on Russia's western border, to the Far Eastern region of the Khabarovsk Krai, has also unsettled Russia's leadership.

Exiled Belarus opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has called the situation in her country "absolutely unacceptable" and pleaded for international pressure to dislodge embattled President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who she said no longer represents Belarus.

In a virtual appearance before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on September 8, Tsikhanouskaya urged international pressure including sanctions on Lukashenka and his government.

"My country, my nation, my people now need help," she said. "We need international pressure on this regime, on this one individual desperately clinging on to power. We need sanctions on individuals who issue and execute criminal orders that violate international norms and human rights. We need an immediate release of all political prisoners and to start a civilized dialogue in order to find ways for our country to move forward."

She added an appeal on behalf of Belarusians currently being victimized by the mass detentions, beatings at the hands of security forces, and apparent forced disappearances.

"I refuse -- as millions of Belarusians -- to accept that this is the fate of my country. I refuse, as do millions of Belarusians, to accept that the world will simply stand and watch these countless abuses of human rights, this blatant disregard for human dignity, this complete annihilation of any basic respect for human decency. I refuse, like millions of Belarusians, to stand down and give up.”

Tsikhanouskaya told the PACE representatives that "countries and parties that make deals with Mr. Lukashenka do so at their own risk" and should not expect a subsequent, democratically elected government to uphold treaties "made against [Belarusians'] will by an illegitimate regime."

Tsikhanouskaya ran against Lukashenka in an August 9 election that the opposition says was rigged.

She fled to Lithuanian days later amid massive protests and rumors she had been slated for arrest.

Unprecedented daily protests have continued, calling for Lukashenka to resign and a new election to be held.

Her PACE appearance comes just hours after Belarusian authorities said they had detained a Tsikhanouskaya ally after she and two other opposition organizers mysteriously appeared at a checkpoint on the Ukrainian border amid fears they had been abducted in Minsk a day earlier.

All three are part of a Coordination Council pressing for a transition away from Lukashenka's 26-year rule.

PACE President Rik Daems recently called for “an all-inclusive national political process” in Belarus to ensure a peaceful and democratic transition.

Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe, but since its guest status was suspended in 1997 the assembly has continued to hold a dialogue with Belarusian authorities and frequently invites Belarusian politicians to attend its committee meetings.

"It is symbolic that I speak today here at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, representing a country, Belarus, that is right at the geographic center of Europe. And yet I have to speak here as an outsider," Tsikhanouskaya said on September 8. "I firmly believe that this situation will not last long. The Belarusians are now fighting for the values that this organization is created to uphold -- the human rights, democracy, and the rule of law -- the very thing that the current regime in my country despises and mocks."

Lukashenka has refused to hold talks with his opponents and rebuffed calls to hold a new election.

Tsikhanouskaya was quoted by Reuters as saying that the apparent abductions of oppostion Coordination Council members on September 7 looked like authorities were trying to stamp out protest momentum and intimidate the opposition.

Tsikhanouskaya is scheduled to visit Warsaw later this week to hold meetings with top Polish officials.

Lukashenka is doing his own travel, with plans to visit Russia “within days,” a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said on September 7. Dmitry Peskov reportedly told TASS that "preparations are in full swing.”

Opposition groups are also calling for the release of political prisoners and for an independent investigation of the police crackdown that swept up thousands in the days after the vote.

With reporting by Current Time, AP, TASS, AFP, and Reuters