BERLIN — Aleksei A. Navalny, the prominent Russian dissident who fell ill while on a flight to Moscow last week, was in all likelihood poisoned, German doctors said on Monday, though they have yet to identify the specific agent. In a statement, doctors at the Charité hospital in Berlin, where Mr. Navalny was taken on Saturday, said they expected him to survive the attack, but that it was too early to gauge the long-term effects, including possible damage to the nervous system. While not able to pinpoint the exact poison, the doctors said tests showed it came from a group known as cholinesterase inhibitors, sometimes used to treat Alzheimer’s Disease. They said the antidote for that class of substances is atropine, which is also used against certain types of nerve gas. They did not say whether Mr. Navalny had been treated with atropine before his arrival in Germany.

Source: New York Times August 24, 2020 14:49 UTC