MOSCOW: Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on Wednesday said he is going on hunger strike until he receives proper medical treatment for severe back pain and numbness in his legs.

President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, who is serving a 2.5-year sentence in one of Russia’s most notorious penal colonies, said he was losing sensation in both legs and demanded he be properly treated.

The 44-year-old said he was suffering from a pinched nerve that had first caused his right leg to go numb and accused prison officials of refusing to provide him with adequate medical treatment.

He complained he had only been given painkillers, but had not been properly diagnosed. In a post on Instagram on Wednesday, Navalny said that the back pain was now causing a loss of feeling in his left leg, too.

“I have gone on a hunger strike demanding that the law be obeyed and that a doctor be allowed to visit me,” he said. Navalny, who is considered a flight risk by authorities, last week filed two complaints against prison authorities, saying he is woken eight times a night by guards announcing to a recording camera that he is still in his cell.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2021