The Russian opposition chief has been tracked right down to a jail above the Arctic Circle, one of many harshest in Russia.
Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has been tracked right down to a jail north of the Arctic Circle, his spokeswoman says after supporters misplaced contact with him for greater than two weeks.
Kira Yarmysh on Monday stated Navalny is within the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp within the Yamal-Nenets area, about 1,900km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow.
Navalny’s lawyer managed to see him on Monday, Yarmysh stated, including: “Alexey is alright.”
The Kremlin critic’s whereabouts had not been identified since December 6, triggering concern from his allies, rights teams and Western governments.
There was hypothesis that he was present process a jail switch, which might take weeks in Russia as a result of prisoners are slowly moved by rail between far-flung amenities.
They’d been getting ready for his anticipated switch to a “special regime” colony, the harshest grade in Russia’s jail system.
The district of Kharp is dwelling to about 5,000 individuals and is situated about 60km (40 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
His new dwelling, referred to as the “Polar Wolf” colony, is taken into account one of many hardest prisons in Russia. Its inmates are convicted of grave crimes. Winters are harsh there with temperatures as a consequence of drop to about minus 28 levels Celsius (minus 18 levels Fahrenheit) there over the following week.
“It is almost impossible to get to this colony. It is almost impossible to even send letters there. This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world,” Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, stated on X, previously Twitter.
Navalny has been behind bars 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 corruption and organised main anti-Kremlin protests. He has since acquired three jail phrases and spent months in isolation in Penal Colony Quantity 6 for alleged minor infractions.
Russian authorities view Navalny and his supporters as “extremists” with hyperlinks to the CIA, the US intelligence company, and say they’re looking for to destabilise Russia.
A court docket prolonged Navalny’s sentence to 19 years on extremism expenses and dominated that he be moved to a safer, harsher jail.
He has rejected all expenses in opposition to him as politically motivated.
Navalny’s supporters consider he was intentionally being hidden after President Vladimir Putin introduced he’s looking for re-election in March, a vote by which he’s anticipated to simply safe a fifth time period.
Moscow has for years sidelined opposition figures from elections and political life, a clampdown that has ramped up because the Kremlin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine in 2022.