Alexei Navalny has shared a picture from his hospital bed after falling ill following a suspected Novichok poisoning.
The 44-year-old, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, collapsed on a domestic flight in Siberia on August 20.
He was flown to Berlin for treatment at the Charite hospital two days later.
On Tuesday, he shared a picture on Instagram alongside his family and wrote that he has managed to breathe for an entire day without medical help.
He told his followers: “Hi, this is Navalny. I have been missing you. I still can’t do much, but yesterday I managed to breathe on my own for the entire day.
“Just on my own, no extra help, not even a valve in my throat. I liked it very much. It’s a remarkable process that is underestimated by many. Strongly recommended.”
A German military lab determined that he was poisoned with Novichok, the same class of Soviet-era agent that Britain said was used on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018.
On Monday, the German government said tests by independent labs in France and Sweden backed its findings.
The Kremlin has bristled at calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders to answer questions about the poisoning, denying any official involvement.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the West of using the incident as a pretext to introduce new sanctions against Moscow.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he had expressed “deep concern over the criminal act” that targeted Mr Navalny directly with Mr Putin on Monday.
The Kremlin said Mr Putin in the call “underlined the impropriety of unfounded accusations against the Russian side” and emphasised Russia’s demand for Germany to hand over analyses and samples.
Mr Putin also called for joint work by German and Russian doctors.
