MOSCOW (AP) — Associates of imprisoned Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny stated Monday that he has been positioned at a jail colony above the Arctic Circle almost three weeks after contact with him was misplaced.
Navalny, probably the most distinguished foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is serving a 19-year sentence on fees of extremism. He had been imprisoned within the Vladimir area of central Russia, about 230 kilometers (140 miles) east of Moscow, however his attorneys stated that they had not been in a position to attain him since Dec. 6.
His spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, stated he was positioned in a jail colony within the city of Kharp, within the Yamalo-Nenets area about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Navalny is “high-quality — not less than as a lot as attainable after such a protracted stage” and a lawyer visited him, Yarmysh informed The Related Press.
The area is infamous for lengthy and extreme winters. The city is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines have been among the many harshest of the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system.
“It’s virtually unimaginable to get to this colony; it’s virtually unimaginable to even ship letters there. That is the very best attainable degree of isolation from the world,” Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, stated on X.
Transfers inside Russia’s jail system are shrouded in secrecy and inmates can disappear from contact for a number of weeks. Navalny’s group was significantly alarmed when he couldn’t be discovered as a result of he had been sick and reportedly was being denied meals and stored in an unventilated cell.
Yarmysh stated the switch was related with the marketing campaign for the Russian presidential election in March. Whereas Putin’s reelection is all however sure, given his overwhelming management over the nation’s political scene and a widening crackdown on dissent, Navalny’s supporters and different critics hope to make use of the marketing campaign to erode public help for the Kremlin chief and his army motion in Ukraine.
“They intentionally despatched him to this explicit colony exactly so as to isolate Alexei as a lot as attainable, in order to not give him any alternative to speak with the surface world,” she stated. “That is all occurring exactly as a result of Alexei, even if he’s in jail, remains to be the principle opponent of Vladimir Putin … It isn’t shocking that they started to switch him to a different colony proper now, in order that he couldn’t intervene with Putin’s marketing campaign.”
Navalny has been behind bars in Russia since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Earlier than his arrest, he campaigned in opposition to official corruption and arranged main anti-Kremlin protests.
He has since obtained three jail phrases and spent months in isolation in Penal Colony No. 6 for alleged minor infractions. He has rejected all fees in opposition to him as politically motivated.