Imprisoned Kremlin opponents
No letters, no contact, no information: Where is Alexei Navalny?
Alexej Navalny (2nd from left) during a court hearing via video link in August this year
© Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP / DPA
Contact with Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been lost for almost a week. He had not even been involved in his own trial recently. It gives hope that he might just be changing prison camps.
Because there has been no sign of life from the imprisoned Kremlin opponent for days Alexej Navalny, concerns about the 47-year-old are growing. In prison camps six and seven in the Vladimir region, the lawyer has now been informed that Navalny is not there, said the opposition spokesman, Kira Yarmysch, in the X news service (earlier Twitter). I still had it on Fridayno answer was given about Navalny’s whereabouts. Now the supervisors have apparently been allowed to tell the lawyer that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s opponent is no longer there.
It has been unclear for days what will happen to Navalny
“We still don’t know where Alexei is,” said Yarmysh. Concerns about Navalny’s health increased after he again missed a court hearing. It is already the sixth day on which it is not clear “what will happen to him”. The politician’s lawsuits against the prison authorities are currently being heard in a court in the city of Kovrov.
Since Thursday, Navalny has not been connected to the trial as usual. The prison camp’s management justified this with alleged problems with the power supply, wrote Jarmysch. Last week, a prison camp representative told journalists that the problems would be resolved as quickly as possible. At the same time, the lawyers have no longer been allowed access to Navalny since last Wednesday.
US “deeply concerned” about Navalny’s disappearance
Concerns about Navalny are particularly great because, according to Yarmysch, he became sick in his cell two weeks ago. Letters from or to Navalny would also not be delivered. Navalny’s team also launched the “Russia without Putin” campaign last week with a view to the presidential election on March 17, 2024. The team called for people to vote for other candidates to prevent the 71-year-old Kremlin leader from being re-elected.
The US government also commented on Navalny’s disappearance: “We are deeply concerned about these reports,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. He reiterated that the US government is demanding Navalny’s “immediate” release. The US Embassy in Moscow will seek information on Navalny’s whereabouts, said Kirby.
Navalny was most recently in a prison camp in the city of Kovrov in the Vladimir region, around 260 kilometers east of Moscow. He was sentenced to 19 years in a prison camp and is internationally classified as a political prisoner. The opposition figure, who also complained about torture in custody, barely survived an assassination attempt using the chemical warfare agent Novichok in August 2020. Navalny had blamed Putin and a hit squad from the domestic secret service FSB for the attack.
Is Navalny currently being convicted?
A court recently ordered Navalny’s transfer to a penal colony with stricter prison conditions. But such transfers from one camp to another often take several weeks in Russia. The prisoners travel the distance by train, with the journey often taking place in several stages. During these transfers, those close to them have no contact with the prisoners. The penal camps with particularly harsh conditions are often located in remote regions.