Russian Opposition Leader Out of Coma After Poisoning
BROWN: In our WORLD LEAD, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is out of a coma weeks after German doctors found that he was poisoned with a Soviet-era chemical agent. And with the Putin critic now awake, we could learn more about how and who poisoned him. CNN's Matthew Chance brings us the mystery from Moscow.</s>MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're calling it the mysterious poisoning of Alexey Navalny. Russian state television trying to sow doubts among its viewers that the Kremlin's loudest critic was silenced on purpose, a target. We sent Navalny to Germany with no poisons in his body, the anchor says, the suggestion if he was poisoned it was by another's hand.</s>UNIDENTIFIED RUSSIAN TV ANCHOR (through translator): Everything looks like a special services operation in which a poisoned Navalny is needed more than a non-poisoned one. The poisoned Navalny is an excellent playing card in the hands of the Americans.</s>CHANCE: You think the poisoning in Russia theory would be hard to deny given these disturbing images of Navalny writhing in agony as he was stretchered off a plane in Siberia last month. Even the testimony of German officials who say the nerve agent Novichok is the cause hasn't convinced everyone. Apparently not even the U.S. President.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know exactly what happened. I think it's tragic, it's terrible. It shouldn't happen. We haven't had any proof yet, but I will take a look.</s>CHANCE: But doubts in the U.S. add credence to conspiracy theories over here. These were the scenes this weekend in Belarus where popular anti-government protests stoked fears that Russian forces could intervene according to the embattled Belorussian President who wants Moscow support. The Navalny poisoning was a distraction fabricated by foreigners to keep the Kremlin out. He even released what he said was an intercepted phone call between unidentified figures in Germany and Poland discussing the plot.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I agree we need to discourage Putin from poking his nose in the affairs of Belarus. The most effective way is to drown him in Russia's problems.</s>CHANCE: Russia has form when it comes to making stuff up to explain what looks like overwhelming evidence against it. Back in 2018 after another Novichok poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain, the two suspects, Russian military intelligence, according to British authorities, appeared on state television with an extraordinary tale of two men with a shared love of architecture on a short break together. Unfairly accusing the couple of close friends or silencing a Kremlin critic at home. For Russian TV, there are no lengths its enemies won't go to, to make Russia look bad.</s>CHANCE: Well, Pam, tonight there's a bit of good news for Alexey Navalny. Apparently according to the clinic in Berlin where he's being treated, his condition has been improved. He's been woken up from his medically induced coma. He's being gradually weaned off the ventilator he's been on for some weeks now. And he's responding apparently to verbal stimuli according to the clinic. But the doctors there say they still can't assess at this stage what long-term damage may have been done by what they describe as a serious poisoning -- Pam.</s>BROWN: And the U.K. has summoned its Russian ambassador because of the poisoning. Is that right?</s>CHANCE: It has. I mean the British government has been expressing its outrage to the Russians that this could have happened. Dominic Raab who's the British Foreign Secretary summoned the Russian ambassador today to register what they say is their deep concern about the poisoning of Alexey Navalny. It is completely unacceptable, the British Foreign Secretary said that a banned chemical weapon has been used and Russia must hold a full transparent investigation. That's in stark contrast, of course, to the words that we heard in that report from President Trump who still has not publicly accepted the evidence that Alexey Navalny was actually poisoned.</s>BROWN: All right, Matthew Chance, live for us in Moscow, thanks so much, Matthew. And coming up, a massive wildfire is burning over 7,000 acres because of a baby gender reveal party that went terribly wrong. And that is not the only fire burning out of control. We'll be back.