Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny taken to hospital fom jail hunger strike

Prison doctors have decided to transfer Russia's main opposition leader Alexei Navalny to hospital, its prison authority said on Monday, 20 days into a hunger strike that has brought international warnings of consequences should he die in jail, Reuters reports.

Allies of Navalny, who have had no access to him since last week, said they were braced for bad news about his health. They are planning mass countrywide demonstrations later this week.

Navalny's case has further isolated Moscow at a time when U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has announced tougher economic sanctions and the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member, has expelled Russian spies, accusing Moscow of a role in deadly 2014 explosions at an arms storage depot.

Russia's prison service said in a statement that a decision had been taken to transfer Navalny, 44, to a regional prison hospital, although it did not make clear whether the transfer had already taken place.

It said his condition was "satisfactory" and he was being given "vitamin therapy" with his consent.

Ivan Zhdanov, head of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, called the move "a transfer to the same torture colony, only with a bigger hospital, where they take seriously ill people.

"So it can only be understood to mean Navalny's condition has worsened, and worsened in such a way that even the torturer admits it," he said on Twitter.

Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who achieved fame with viral videos cataloguing the vast wealth accumulated by senior Russian officials he brands "swindlers and thieves,'' is serving a 2-1/2 year sentence on old embezzlement charges that he calls trumped up.

He was arrested on returning to Russia in January after recuperating in Germany from what German authorities say was poisoning with a banned nerve agent in Russia, which he and Western governments called an attempted assassination. The Kremlin denies any blame.

Navalny went on hunger strike on March 31 to protest against what he said was the refusal of the prison authorities to provide him treatment for leg and back pain. Russia says he has been treated well and is exaggerating illness to gain attention.

The United States has warned Russia of unspecified "consequences" should Navalny die in Russian jail. EU foreign ministers were due to discuss the case on Monday.

The Kremlin said on Monday it would retaliate against any further sanctions and rejected foreign countries' statements on the case. "The state of health of those convicted and jailed on Russian territory cannot and should not be a theme of their interest," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.