As of: February 19, 2024, 4:26 p.m
By: Richard Strobl
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Putin critic Alexei Navalny has been declared dead by Russian authorities.
There are initial reports on the possible cause of death.
Moscow – Russia's leading opposition critic Alexei Navalny apparently died on February 16, 2024.
The Russian prison authorities confirmed his death in a short statement.
The Russian news agency
Tass
also reported.
Accordingly, the 47-year-old collapsed on Friday after a walk in a Siberian penal colony.
He immediately lost consciousness.
Arriving paramedics tried to revive Navalny.
However, this was unsuccessful.
There is currently no exact information about the cause of death.
The statement simply states: “The causes of death are currently being determined.”
However, the media
RT
, citing an insider, has already reported that Navalny died as a result of a loose blood clot.
This information is not confirmed.
Alexei Navalny is dead: first information on the cause of death
The Kremlin has not yet responded to the report.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov only confirmed that Vladimir Putin had been informed of Navalny's death.
The press spokeswoman for the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Kira Yarmysch, says she cannot confirm his death or the cause of death.
She announced this on the online platform X (formerly Twitter) after the prison administration informed about the 47-year-old's death.
Navalny's lawyer Leonid Solovyov told the Kremlin-critical newspaper
Novaya Gazeta
: "I don't comment at all on the decision of Alexei Navalny's family."
A screen shows Alexei Navalny announcing the verdict during a visiting session of the Moscow City Court in Penal Colony No. 6 in the village of Melehovo in 2023.
© IMAGO/Sofya Sandurskaya
Statement from the Russian prison authorities on Navalny's death in full:
“On February 16, 2024, in Penal Colony Number 3, prisoner Alexei Navalny felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness.
The institution's medical staff arrived immediately and an ambulance team was called.
All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but did not produce positive results.
The emergency services doctors declared the convict dead.
The causes of death are currently being determined.”
Navalny was sentenced to a total of 19 years in a camp for alleged “extremism,” among other things.
Internationally, however, the politician, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020, is classified as a political prisoner.
Human rights organizations have long called for Navalny's release.
Cause of death unknown: Navalny dies in Putin's prison camp
After being treated in Germany for the consequences of the poison attack, Navalny returned to Russia on January 17, 2021 - and was arrested at the airport.
The politician, who was classified as a political prisoner, had already disappeared for several weeks last December.
It later turned out that the justice system had moved him from the European part of Russia to a prison camp in the far north of Siberia.
Navalny suspected that he should be as isolated as possible there before the upcoming presidential election in March.
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Navalny repeatedly filed lawsuits against the prison system for violating his rights.
He used the court appearances not least to scathingly criticize Putin's authoritarian system and Moscow's war against Ukraine.
Most recently, Navalny was no longer involved in the negotiations when the election campaign began.
Navalny has been internationally recognized as a political prisoner.
The USA, the EU and the federal government have repeatedly expressed concern in recent weeks and called on the Russian leadership to provide information about Navalny's whereabouts.
However, Russia rejected this as interference in its internal affairs.
The Kremlin also said it could not concern itself with the fate of prisoners in Russia.
(rist/dpa/reuters)