According to reports, kremlin critic and leader of an opposition movement in the one party transcontinental country, Alexei Navalny will be entering his third week of hunger strike in protest at his treatment by the Russian authorities. Navalny was reportedly poisoned with a novichok nerve agent, one of a group of nerve agents developed by the soviet union between 1971 and 1993. He is said to have become violently ill during a domestic flight in August, which lead to an emergency landing in Siberia and hospitalisation. He was put in a medically induced coma, reportedly to reduce metabolic activity and blood flow to the brain in order to minimise swelling and protect from permanent damage. Two days later he was transferred to the Charité hospital in Berlin, one of Europe’s largest university hospitals with numerous said to be collaborative research centres. The use of the nerve agent was confirmed by five laboratories certified by the organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons, a branch of the chemical weapons convention. On 17 January Navalny returned to Russia and was arrested.
The chemical weapons convention was accused of being u.s. dominated following objections and a reshuffle relating to plans to include Iraq, which would have allowed monitors into Iraq and could have averted a war. The cwc reportedly cooperates with the u.n., not thought by all to be impartial. Authoritarianism and a lack of trust may prevent any cooperation between the Russian government and Navalny who has popular support in Russia and beyond, but some sources say he may be backed by the uk. Opinion is any collaberation between the two parties should be good for Russia from a nationalist perspective.