Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny dies in jail

Russian penitentiary services have reported that rival Alexei Navalny has died in correctional colony No. 3 of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, according to the state agency RIA.

Navalny, 47, one of Putin’s most prominent and frequent critics, was being held in a prison about 65 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, where he was sentenced to 19 years under a “special regime.”

Kira Yarmysh, a spokesperson for the family, said in X shortly after the news broke: “The Federal Penitentiary Service has spread the news of the death of Alexei Navalny in (prison) IK-3. We still don’t have any confirmation on this. Alexey’s lawyers are now flying to Kharap. As soon as we have any information, we will inform him.”

The Kremlin, likewise, claims to have no information about the causes of Navalny’s death, as declared this Friday by Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov, minutes after receiving news of the politician’s death. “Doctors have to clarify this,” Peskov was quoted as saying by the TASS agency.

Dmitry Muratov, a Russian newspaper editor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has told Reuters that Navalny’s death was a “murder”, and has said he believes prison conditions led to his death.

prison transformation

In early December he disappeared from a prison in the Vladimir region, where he was serving a 30-year sentence on extremism and fraud charges in what he said was political retribution for leading the 2010 anti-Kremlin protests. He did not expect it to be released during Putin’s lifetime.

A former nationalist politician, Navalny helped fuel Russia’s 2011–12 protests by campaigning against election fraud and government corruption, investigating Putin’s inner circle and sharing the results in catchy videos that received millions of views. of.

The high point of his political career came in 2013, when he won 27% of the vote in the Moscow mayoral election, which some considered fair. For years he remained a thorn in the side of the Kremlin, identifying a palace built on the Black Sea for Putin’s personal use, mansions and yachts used by former President Dmitry Medvedev, and a sex worker whom he identified as a senior Kremlin employee. Had connected with the officer. Foreign policy with a well-known elite.

In 2020, Navalny fell into a coma after being suspected of Novichok poisoning by the Russian security service, the FSB, and was flown to Germany for treatment. He recovered and returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was arrested for violating parole and sentenced to multiple prison terms totaling more than 30 years behind bars.

Putin recently began his campaign for his fifth term as president. He is already the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin and he could surpass him if he runs again in the 2030 elections, a possibility, as in 2020 he violated constitutional term limits. The rules were changed.

EU holds Putin regime “fully responsible”

It did not take long for Navalny’s death to be condemned. “The EU holds the Russian regime fully responsible for this tragic death,” European Council President Charles Michel said via the social network X (formerly Twitter). The Belgian politician defined the Russian opponent as someone who “fought for the values ​​of freedom and democracy.” “For his ideals, he made the supreme sacrifice,” the comment said: “Fighters die. But the fight for freedom never ends.”