Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny dead, says prison service

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has died in prison, according to Russian authorities.

The ardent critic of President Vladimir Putin has been jailed since 2021.

In December, he was moved to a notorious artic penal colony, thousands of miles to the northeast of Moscow in Siberia.

A reason has not yet been given for his death, though prison authorities have said he felt unwell after a walk on Friday and then fell unconscious.

Navalny, who campaigned against what he described as rampant corruption within Russia, was poisoned in 2020 in what Western laboratories later confirmed to be a nerve agent.

In his last public appearance from prison on 10 January, Navalny joked that he that he was yet to receive any Christmas mail, due to being “quite far away”.

Alexei Navalny was probably Putin’s most famous critic.For more than a decade, he exposed corruption at the heart of Russian power. His video investigations have received tens of millions of views onlineA charismatic campaigner, Navalny, set up a network of regional campaign offices, having planned to run for president in 2018. He was barred from the vote.In 2020, he was poisoned in Siberia by what Western laboratories later confirmed to be a nerve agent.He was treated abroad and had been jailed since returning to Russia in January 2021, when he was immediately arrested.Before he was jailed he lived in Moscow with his wife Yulia and their two children.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Alexei Navalny taking part in a rally in Moscow in 2020

Navalny ‘felt unwell’ and ‘lost consciousness’, prison service says

More now from the prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district, where Navalny had been serving his sentence.In a statement, it said he had “felt unwell” after a walk on Friday.He had “almost immediately lost consciousness”, it continued, adding that an emergency medical team had immediately been called and tried to resuscitate him but without success.”The emergency doctors declared the prisoner dead. Cause of death is being established.”Navalny’s lawyer Leonid Solovyov told Russian media he would not be commenting yet.

As we reported moments ago, Navalny was last seen in a video call in January, joking about his prison outfit at the Arctic penal colony he had been moved to a month earlier.

The IK-3 colony, nicknamed “Polar Wolf”, is in the northern town of Kharp, some 1,900km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.

It’s seen as one of the toughest jails in Russia and most detainees held there have been convicted of serious crimes.

Speaking to journalists on the video call, Navalny appeared to be in good spirits, joking that he was yet to receive any Christmas mail, due to being “quite far away”.