On 20 August 2020, Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent and was hospitalized in a serious condition. Although initially it was suspected that his tea was poisoned before his flight from Tomsk to Moscow, it was later discovered that traces of Novichok were found on the hotel's water bottles. During the flight, he became violently ill and was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing there, and put in a coma. He was evacuated to the Charité hospital in Berlin, Germany two days later. On 2 September, the German government said that it had "unequivocal evidence" that Navalny was poisoned by a Novichok agent and had called on the Russian government for an explanation. On 7 September, doctors announced that they had taken Navalny out of the induced coma and that his condition had improved. Other prominent Russians including activists, journalists and former spies, especially those critical of the Kremlin, have suffered poisoning attacks in recent decades, with targets such as Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal. It is presumed that Navalny was poisoned in a politically motivated attack for his work. The Kremlin has denied involvement in Navalny's poisoning and all previous attacks. Ivan Zhdanov, chief of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that Navalny could have been poisoned over one of the foundation's investigations. Russian prosecutors refused to open an official criminal investigation of the poisoning, claiming they found no sign that a crime had been committed.

Parneshia Jones (born 1980) is an American publisher, editor, and editor. In September 2020 she was appointed director of Northwestern University Press.

On 20 August 2020, Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was poisoned by a nerve agent and was hospitalized in a serious condition. Although initially it was suspected that his tea was poisoned before his flight from Tomsk to Moscow, it was later discovered that traces of Novichok were found on the hotel's water bottles. During the flight, he became violently ill and was taken to a hospital in Omsk after an emergency landing there, and put in a coma. He was evacuated to the Charité hospital in Berlin, Germany two days later. On 2 September, the German government said that it had "unequivocal evidence" that Navalny was poisoned by a Novichok agent and had called on the Russian government for an explanation. On 7 September, doctors announced that they had take