In dramatic news from Russia the leading opposition figure, Aleksei Navalny, has been hospitalized after a suspected poisoning.

In recent hours, following the release of cell phone footage, the Russian opposition leader, Aleksei Navalny, was recorded groaning and crying out in pain before he was stretchered off his flight from the Siberian town of Tomsk on his way back to Moscow. Shortly after the flight left Navalny began to feel unwell and the pilot was forced to make an emergency landing to allow medics to take him to hospital.

It is thought that Navalny was poisoned by a cup of tea that he drank in the airport waiting lounge, shortly before his flight took off, and it was only after the plane had taken off that the effects became evident.

Currently laying in a coma, Navalny is fighting for his life in a hospital as rumors of his poisoning have spread across Russia and the world. Aleksei Navalny is best known in Russia as a leading figure in the opposition movement and a vocal anti-corruption spokesperson who has been criticizing Russian president Putin with increasing ferocity in recent years.

This is not the first attack that Aleksei Navalny has been subjected to, having previously been covered in a green dye by a protestor that left his vision permanently damaged in one eye. It is well known in Russia that leading an opposition movement against the Putin government can be a dangerous job with Navalny himself having previously commented that he was willing to take the risks in order to bring the epidemic of corruption in Russia to the attention of the people and the world.

At the moment many speculate that the poisoning was ordered by the Kremlin, in Moscow, however, until more details emerge, and the truth of the situation can be known, all that is certain is that Aleksei Navalny is in a life and death struggle in a hospital in Omsk.