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Alexei Navalny started refusing food on March 31 in protest over his treatment in prison (Picture: AFP)Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny could be on the verge of death after entering the third week of a hunger strike, a doctor has warned.
\nThe 44-year-old has sharply elevated levels of potassium \u2014 which can bring on heart attacks \u2014 and raised creatinine levels that impair the kidneys, said Yaroslav Ashikhmin.
\n\u2018Our patient could die at any moment,\u2019 he posted on Facebook after receiving test results from the dissident\u2019s family.
\nHis daughter Dasha tweeted: \u2018Allow a doctor to see my dad.\u2019
\nMr Navalny started refusing food on March 31 in protest over his treatment in prison \u2014 saying he had been denied proper medical care for acute back and leg pain.
\nJail bosses say they have offered him proper care but he has refused it and wants to be treated by a doctor of his choice from outside \u2014 a request that has been declined.
\nJude Law and JK Rowling are among a group of actors, writers directors and journalists who have penned an open letter to president Vladimir Putin, urging him to give Mr Navalny the treatment he wants.<\/p>\n
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is a critic of Vladimir Putin (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Doctors have warned about Alexei Navalny\u2019s health (Picture: AFP)But Russia\u2019s ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, labelled the Kremlin critic an attention-seeker.
\n\u2018He will not be allowed to die in prison, but I can say that Mr Navalny, he behaves like a hooligan, absolutely,\u2019 the ambassador said in an interview with the BBC\u2019S Andrew Marr yesterday. \u2018His purpose for all of that is to attract attention for him.\u2019
\nMr Navalny has said prison authorities are threatening to put him in a straitjacket to force-feed him unless he abandons his hunger strike.
\nMore: UK<\/p>\n
In February, he was jailed for two and a half years for violating the terms of a suspended sentence, imposed over charges he insists were fabricated.
\nHe was arrested on his return from Germany, where he had been taken for lifesaving treatment after being poisoned with nerve agent novichok in an attack he blamed on Mr Putin.
\nAfter spending weeks in a coma, he was accused of failing to tell parole chiefs where he was \u2014 but said they only had to read the news to find out.
\nThe Kremlin has said it has seen no evidence he was poisoned and has cast him as a US-backed subversive.
\nFor more stories like this, check out our news page. <\/p>\n
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