Alexei Navalny
Alexei NavalnyReuters

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was reportedly “poisoned with a toxin” and rushed, unconscious, to the hospital on Wednesday night, according to his press secretary.

“This morning Navalny was returning to Moscow from Tomsk. On the flight he started feeling ill. The plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. Alexei has been poisoned with a toxin. Right now we’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital,” tweeted press secretary Kira Yarmish, who later said Navalny was in the ICU.

“We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mixed into his tea. That was the only thing he drank this morning. The doctors say that the toxin was absorbed more quickly because of the hot liquid. Right now Alexei is unconscious,” the press secretary added.

“A year ago, when Alexei was in a detention center, he was poisoned. Obviously, now they’ve done the same thing to him again.”

Navalny is known as the face of domestic opposition to Putin and has been jailed dozens of times for his activism over the past decade.

Last year, he was hospitalized after his doctor said he was poisoned with "undefined chemical substances."