Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said he is recovering his verbal and physical abilities at the German hospital where he is being treated for suspected nerve agent poisoning but that he at first felt despair over his condition.

Navalny, who is being treated in a Berlin hospital, was airlifted to Germany after falling ill on a Russian domestic flight last month.

'If the right people are sanctioned in response to the Navalny poisoning, that will have a seriously crippling effect on the Putin regime,' one expert says.

Alexei Navalny has been in an induced coma in a Berlin hospital since he was flown to Germany for treatment more than a week ago.

Lukashenko, who turned 66 on Sunday, is struggling to contain weeks of protests and strikes since winning an Aug. 9 election his opponents say was rigged. He denies electoral fraud and has said the protests are backed from abroad.

Two Moscow-based Associated Press journalists who were covering the recent protests in Belarus were deported to Russia on Saturday.

Gravely ill Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was evacuated to Germany for medical treatment on Saturday, flown out of the Siberian city of Omsk in an ambulance aircraft and taken to a hospital in Berlin.

Alexei Navalny collapsed on a plane on Thursday after drinking tea his allies believe was laced with poison.

Sergei Furgal has been in a Moscow jail since his arrest on July 9, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has named an acting successor.

The particular sleight of hand used this time was different, Matthew Fisher says, but the result of Russia's national referendum was the same: the country will get a lot more Putin.