Hunger-striking Navalny to go to hospital

Moscow: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, will be admitted to a hospital in another prison, the Russian state penitentiary service said Monday, after the politician's doctor said he could be near death.

The prison service, FSIN, also said that Navalny had agreed to take vitamin therapy, but an ally of the 44-year-old Kremlin critic cast doubt on that and the hospital transfer, saying his lawyers should confirm both.

The service said in a statement that Navalny would be transferred to a hospital for convicts located in a penal colony in Vladimir, a city 180 kilometers (110 miles) east of Moscow.

According to the statement, Navalny's condition is deemed satisfactory.

But the opposition leader's physician, Dr. Yaroslav Ashikhmin, said Saturday that test results he received from the family show him with 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.