Russian President Vladimir Putin’s critic Alexei Navalny has been removed from a medically induced coma and is responding to speech. Berlin’s Charite hospital, which has been treating Navalny since he was airlifted to Germany after falling ill on a Russian domestic flight last month, said his condition has improved and he is being weaned off mechanical ventilation. The hospital said it remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning. Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her government has concluded Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, the same substance that Britain said was used against a Russian double agent and his daughter in an attack in England in 2018. Moscow says it has seen no evidence he was poisoned.