Russian opponent Alexei Navalny dies in prison

Russian opponent Alexei Navalny, 47, died in prison this Friday, according to the Russian state agency RIA Novosti.

The well-known dissident felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately afterward lost consciousness, according to the agency, which cites the department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District.

According to a note from this penitentiary institution, doctors arrived quickly and “an ambulance was called.”

“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but they failed.

Emergency health services confirmed the death of the prisoner.

The causes of death are being determined,” the statement added.

Navalny, the most prominent Russian dissident politician, a tireless critic of the Kremlin, leading investigative campaigns to uncover Putin-era corruption, had been behind bars since January 2021.

In December, the dissident's collaborators sounded all the alarms when they lost contact with Navalni for almost three weeks, during which his whereabouts were unknown.

On the 25th, his spokesperson, Kira Yarmish, reported that he had been transferred to the IK-3 penal colony in Jarp, in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow and about 60 kilometers north of the circle. polar arctic, where temperatures of several tens of degrees below zero are recorded.

That prison, known as the Polar Wolf colony, is considered one of the harshest in Russia and is intended for prisoners convicted of serious crimes.

The prison was founded in the 1960s as part of the Soviet forced labor camp gulag system

Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov referred to Navalny's death minutes after it became known.

“The prison service takes care of all the checks.

It is not necessary to give instructions to [check] this because there is a set of rules in this regard,” he stated.

Regarding the possibility that the opponent died due to a blood clot, as some Russian media have pointed out, Peskov stated that "the doctors will solve it."

Yarmish announced this Friday that the activist's lawyers are already heading to the Yamal-Nenets prison.

“We still do not have any confirmation of his death,” he said.

In early 2023, a group of more than 170 doctors signed a letter addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing their concern for the prisoner's health.

“The conditions of his detention and Alexei Navalny's physical appearance cause us great concern for his life and his health,” the letter said at the time.

His lawyers reported that the activist did not receive medicine and only enjoyed an hour and a half walk outside his cell a day.

Russian opponent Alexei Navalny addresses protesters during a protest against Putin in Pushkin Square in 2012 in Moscow.

Konstantin Zavrazhin (Getty Images)

Navalny (born in Butyn, Moscow region, 47 years ago), was the most prominent leader of the Russian opposition.

He was sentenced to nine years in March 2022 in a “strict regime penal colony” in a fraud case that his followers claim was fabricated by the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prosecutors accused him of stealing some €4.36 million in donations given to his organizations that have now been banned by the Russian government, including his anti-corruption foundation Platform Against Corruption (FBK).

On August 4, he received another 19-year sentence for supporting extremism.

The sentence was added to the previous one and another 2.5 years issued in 2021 for diversion of funds in the so-called

, which dates back to 2013. The opponent's defense, as well as his followers, affirm that this last case has been manufactured to keep Navalny away from the political sphere for an even longer period of time.

Furthermore, the political movement's declaration of him as an “extremist” has intensified his political isolation.

The politician was arrested upon returning to Moscow in January 2021 for violating parole when he was hospitalized in Germany in a coma after being poisoned in an episode in which the Kremlin's hand was suspected, according to Western intelligence services.

Despite his state of health, the Russian justice system considered that the opponent had to comply with the terms of his conditional release for a case that the European Court of Human Rights had considered an “arbitrary process.”

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