A doctor for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, says his health is deteriorating rapidly and the 44-year-old Kremlin critic could be on the verge of death.
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Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putin's most visible and adamant opponent.
Physician Yaroslav Ashikhmin said Saturday that test results he received from Navalny's family show him as having sharply elevated levels of potassium, which can bring on cardiac arrest, and heightened creatinine levels that indicate impaired kidneys.
"Our patient could die at any moment," he said in a Facebook post.
Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Navalny-backed Alliance of Doctors union, said on Twitter that "action must be taken immediately."