MOSCOW -- Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Friday that he is ending his hunger strike after getting medical attention and being warned by his doctors that continuing it would put his life at risk.
The 24-day hunger strike, which Navalny said had left him so skinny that he looked like a "skeleton, swaying, walking in its cell," became the latest battle in a yearslong, high-stakes competition between President Vladimir Putin and his most prominent domestic political opponent.
In a message posted to his Instagram account Friday, Navalny said he will continue to demand a visit from his doctor to address numbness in his legs and arms -- his main demand. But he said he would halt the strike after having been examined by doctors not affiliated with the prison, something he called "a huge progress."
He also acknowledged the mass pro-Navalny protests across Russia on Wednesday and the support he received from around the globe.
"Thanks to the huge support of good people across the country and around the world, we have made huge progress," Navalny said. "Two months ago, my requests for medical help were prompting smirks. I wasn't given any medications. ... Thanks to you, now I have been examined by a panel of civilian doctors twice."
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Another reason he was ending the hunger strike was that some of his supporters were refusing to eat in a show of solidarity, Navalny said.
"Tears flowed from my eyes when I read that. God, I'm not even acquainted with these people, and they do this for me. Friends, my heart is full of love and gratitude for you, but I don't want anyone physically suffering because of me," said the 44-year-old politician.
He said he would start "coming out of the hunger strike" Friday and the process of ending it will take 24 days.
Russia's treatment of Navalny has drawn international condemnation. The U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has said the Russian government would face "consequences if Mr. Navalny dies."
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian of France also expressed concern and put the Russian government on notice: "There is a major responsibility here for President Putin," he said.
'CROOKS AND THIEVES'
Putin refuses even to speak Navalny's name, but even in prison he managed to confound the president with a quandary: Either concede to his demands for medical treatment by his personal doctors or risk creating a martyr.
Through the years Navalny has run a highly effective investigative unit that has embarrassed Putin and discredited his government with slickly produced videos exposing corruption at the highest ranks. He routinely refers to Putin's United Russia party as a gang of "crooks and thieves."
Navalny also has continued to set the agenda for the political opposition before parliamentary elections scheduled for the fall. His organization turned out tens of thousands of street protesters Wednesday, stealing some of the limelight from Putin's annual state-of-the-nation address.
Navalny was arrested in January upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a poisoning with a nerve agent that he blames on the Kremlin -- an accusation that Russian officials reject.
He was promptly put on trial for violating terms of a suspended sentence stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction, which he says was politically motivated. He was ordered to serve 2½ years in prison.
Navalny began the hunger strike March 31 after developing severe pain in his back and loss of sensation in his legs.
Prison officials have said he was getting all the medical help he needed, but Navalny insisted he essentially received no treatment.
Navalny's doctors said last weekend that they feared he was close to dying because his test results showed sharply elevated levels of potassium, which can bring on cardiac arrest, and heightened creatinine levels that indicated impaired kidneys.
He was transferred Sunday from a penal colony east of Moscow to the hospital ward of another prison in Vladimir, a city 110 miles east of the capital.
The day after mass protests demanding his freedom swept across Russia, a team of his doctors released a letter urging him to end the hunger strike.
The letter revealed that Navalny on Tuesday was taken to a regular hospital in Vladimir, where he underwent tests and was examined by specialists "in accordance" with requests from his doctors.
It said they were given the results of those tests through Navalny's lawyers and family Thursday.
The doctors said they would continue to insist on access to Navalny but also urged him "to immediately stop the hunger strike in order to save life and health," saying they considered being examined by "civilian" doctors from outside the prison and undergoing "objective tests" enough to end the strike.
In another statement after Navalny announced an end to his hunger strike, his team of doctors said more tests were needed to figure out the diagnosis and demanded he be transferred to a "civilian multidisciplinary hospital" in Moscow and offered adequate pain relief.
"He has been experiencing pain for two months," said the statement, published in the Novaya Gazeta newspaper. "It's been two months since the symptoms occurred, but a proper diagnosis hasn't been determined so far."
Dr. Alexei Erlikh, an intensive-care specialist and one of five doctors on the team, said Navalny, who spent a long time in a coma after his poisoning in August, shouldn't be viewed as just a patient who starved himself.
"This is a patient who starved following an unknown damage of his nervous system by an unknown substance, with an unknown degree of further risk," Erlikh said.
PROTESTS, ARRESTS
Navalny's arrest in January triggered mass protests -- the biggest show of defiance the Kremlin has encountered in years.
The authorities responded with a harsh crackdown, arresting thousands of people and jailing hundreds. Navalny's aides and associates across Russia also were targeted with detentions and raids. Some of his top allies have been slapped with criminal charges and put under house arrest.
Last week, Russian authorities took the pressure to a new level, with the Moscow prosecutor's office petitioning a court to label his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his network of regional offices as extremist groups.
Human-rights activists say such a move would paralyze their activities and expose their members and donors to prison sentences of up to 10 years.
Navalny will face some tough days, said close ally Lyubov Sobol, who spent more than 30 days on a hunger strike in 2019: "I know that the coming days will be very difficult. The first week of coming out of the hunger strike is effectively the same hunger strike -- you can't eat normal food, it can result in very grave consequences for your heath."
She said it will be especially difficult for Navalny in prison, without access to "normal" -- let alone specialized -- food.
"It's hard for me to say that we can take a breather and all relax. No, Navalny's life and health are still under threat," Sobol said.
Navalny's attorneys previously said he has two herniated discs that have caused extreme back pain and numbness in his leg and hands.
"I want to understand what it is and how to treat it," Navalny said. "But taking into account the progress and all the circumstances, I am beginning to get out of the hunger strike. The rules say it will take the same 24 days, and they say it's even harder. So wish me luck."
Information for this article was contributed by Daria Litvinova and Kostya Manenkov of The Associated Press; by Andrew E. Kramer of The New York Times; and by Isabelle Khurshudyan of The Washington Post.
