Alexei Navalny has ended his weekslong hunger strike after doctors warned he could die from it

• The Russian critic Alexei Navalny on Friday said he was ending his hunger strike after 23 days.
• His doctors had been warning that he could die soon.
• He said he was touched after hearing that other people started fasting in support of him.

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has announced that he is ending his weekslong hunger strike.

"I am beginning an exit from the hunger strike," he said Friday in an Instagram post.

Alongside the text to his post, Navalny included a statement signed by several physicians who pleaded that he end the hunger strike. They said his hunger strike had gone on for too long and if he continued it, there could soon be nothing left for them to treat.

"Further starvation can inflict significant harm to the health" of Navalny, the doctors' statement read. If he continued the hunger strike, they said, he would die.

"We understand that if the hunger strike continues, even for a smallest amount of time, we will unfortunately soon have no one to treat," the statement continued. "Our principal goal - to maintain our patient's life and health. Accordingly, we, as attending physicians, are addressing Alexei Navalny and asking that he immediately stop the hunger strike in order to preserve life and health."

Navalny in his post said he made the decision to quit the hunger strike in part because he heard some of his supporters also started one in solidarity.

"Goodness, I don't even know these people, but they do such a thing for me," he wrote.

"I do not want anyone to go through physical suffering because of me," Navalny added.

Navalny started his hunger strike on March 31 in protest over his medical conditions in prison. His personal doctors have repeatedly said they were denied access to him.

Earlier this month one of his doctors warned he could "die any minute" because he had become so weak, and his lawyer said he had lost sensitivity in his leg and hands. On Thursday, Navalny said he looked like a "skeleton walking, swaying, in its cell."

Navalny also said Russian prison guards were trying to end his hunger strike by slipping candy in his pockets and frying chicken in front of him.

On Monday, Russia's prison service described Navalny's health as "satisfactory," and the Kremlin dismissed concerns about his health.

Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a Russian prison for skipping parole meetings. His lawyer said he had missed the meetings because he was in Berlin undergoing treatment for nerve-agent poisoning. Navalny has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering the poisoning.

US and European Union leaders have expressed concern over Navalny's health, with the US national security advisor warning of "consequences if Mr. Navalny dies."