Navalny’s condition is slightly improved.

On Monday, the Charité hospital in Berlin said in a statement that Mr Navalny was being weaned off mechanical ventilation.

“He is responding to verbal stimuli. It remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning,” it said.

I think we can assume they won’t be beneficial.

Meanwhile Anna Nemtsova says today’s attack is classic KGB.

Men in civilian clothes with masks covering their faces grabbed the woman inspiring a revolution in Belarus on Monday. They pushed Maria Kolesnikova into a minivan at about 10am local time (3am ET)—the opposition leader hasn’t been seen since.

Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’ brutal leader for the past 26 years, has been cracking down on protests and threatening to arrest members of the opposition Coordination Council for an alleged “attempt to seize power,” but this is not simply a case of heavy-handed policing. It was a classic abduction, a technique of repression favored by the likes of the KGB and its Russian successor the FSB for generations.

The Belarusian KGB has been known for making people “disappear” since the early years of Lukashenko’s rule; for more than a quarter of a century, he has chosen to repress his opponents. His willingness to abuse power is the main reason so many Belarusians want to see him forced out of office and put on trial.

It’s quite a good reason, too. Making people “disappear” is…you know, murder, or if you do enough of it, genocide. Doing it to terrorize opposition is political murder/genocide. It’s not what you want in a government.

Two other members of the 600-strong Coordination Council also went missing on Monday. Frantic opposition staff and their lawyers have been touring the prisons and police stations in a desperate search for their kidnapped colleagues.

This is bad.