The physician who treated Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny following his poisoning in 2020 has "suddenly" died, according to CNN and Forbes, citing the Russian hospital which first treated him.
The doctor's death came just days after Navalny was sentenced to two years and eight months' imprisonment for failing to comply with his parole duties while he was hospitalized in Berlin.
Sergey Maximishin, Omsk Emergency Hospital deputy chief physician, passed away at the age of 55, a statement released by the hospital showed.
A spokesperson from Omsk's regional health ministry told CNN on Friday that based on initial data, Maximishin had died as a result of cardiac arrest. The hospital representative declined to provide further details.
A top aide to Navalny said Russia's healthcare system is very poor and "it is not uncommon for physicians of his age to suddenly die," Business Insider quoted the aide as saying. CNN noted it had no proof of foul play being involved.
Navalny was taken to the hospital on August 20 last year after he fell sick on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow, which was forced to make an emergency landing in the city.
Maximishin, the hospital's deputy director for anesthesiology and resuscitation, died in the same intensive care unit were Navalny received treatment, Radio Liberty said.
The director of the Omsk health ministry, Aleksandr Murakhovsky – who was serving as the medical facility's chief physician during Navalny's hospitalization – mourned Maximishin's death, saying the doctor had saved thousands of lives during his 28 years of service at the hospital.
Navalny was placed into a medically induced coma and eventually airlifted to Berlin, where he spent five months recovering from the poisoning.
Moscow police arrested him after he returned to Russia, and was jailed this week for violating a probation condition of a previous sentence. The decision triggered swift condemnation overseas, including the U.S. Navalny maintains that the charges filed against him are baseless.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons determined in October last year that Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering the poisoning, and an inquiry made by CNN and Bellingcat found that the attempt on his life was carried out by agents of Russia's FSB spy agency.
Meanwhile, Leonid Volkov – Navalny's chief of staff – said there could be foul play in Maximishin's death. "He knew more than anyone else about Alexei's condition," Forbes quoted him as saying.
