DKremlin contender Alexei Navalny, who has been wanted for more than two weeks, is back in the running. He was transferred to the IK-3 prison camp in Northern Russia in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmish said Monday on the X news service, earlier on Twitter. “He's fine,” Jarmish said. There is no sign of Navalny for 20 days. His team and lawyers went on a manhunt. The new prison camp is 2,000 kilometers from Moscow.
“We found Alexey!” said his colleague Ivan Zhdanov. He is in the “Polar Wolf” penal camp, one of the northern and most remote colonies. “The conditions there are brutal,” Zhdanov said. There is also permafrost. It was very difficult to get there; Letters will not be issued to the camp. It was clear from the start that Moscow's power apparatus wanted to isolate an opponent of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin ahead of the March 17 presidential election. “His whereabouts were kept secret,” Zhdanov criticized. Sarb, a remote town of about 5,000 people, lies north of the Arctic Circle and contains several penal colonies.
US expresses concern over Navalnys. The US State Department announced on Monday that Navalny's whereabouts were welcome after nearly three weeks of uncertainty. “Mr. We are deeply concerned about Navalny's well-being and the conditions under which he is being held in unjustified detention2. The US government continues to demand his “immediate release”.
“We have informed the Russian government that whatever happens in Mr. Navalny's custody, the international community is closely monitoring it,” the US State Department statement added.
Navalny, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison on terrorism charges, has repeatedly filed lawsuits against the prison system for violating his rights, among other things. He appears in court to criticize Putin's authoritarian regime. He has not been involved in negotiations recently.
The whereabouts of the Russian president's staunch adversary have been unknown since early December. The 47-year-old opposition leader was unwell and worried. During court proceedings, prison staff said only that Navalnyj was not at the IK-6 penal camp in the Vladimir region, 260 kilometers east of Moscow.
According to the verdict handed down against him in the summer, Navalny must serve his sentence in a colony with harsh prison conditions. These are usually limited to life sentences and particularly dangerous prisoners. There is one such colony at Charb No. 18, which also goes by the name “Arctic Owl”. According to his spokesman, Navalny is in another colony.
Transfers from one penal colony to another in Russia were carried out via train journeys that took several weeks and were interrupted by many stops. During this time, the relatives of the prisoners do not get any information about their whereabouts.
Kremlin opponents surrounding Navalnyj also launched a “Russia without Putin” campaign in early December, calling on voters to show their opposition by voting for other candidates ahead of the presidential election. Putin is running for a fifth term in the polls, and potential challengers are considered to have no chance.
Navalny, who survived an assassination attempt with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020, has been in prison for nearly three years. He is internationally recognized as a political prisoner.
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