Russian opponent and number one adversary of the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny, died Friday in the Arctic prison where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence, announced the prison services (FSIN).
“On February 16, 2024, in penitentiary center No. 3, prisoner Navalny AA felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness,” the FSIN of the Arctic region of Iamal said in a statement, assuring that emergency services tried to save him.
“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out but did not produce a positive result. Emergency doctors pronounced the patient dead. The causes of death are being established,” he said in this concise press release.
The 47-year-old activist was serving a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism” in a remote Arctic penal colony, under very difficult conditions. His multiple trials had been widely denounced as political and a way of punishing him for his opposition to Vladimir Putin.
The Russian president was informed of the death, according to his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
During various hearings in trials in which he participated by video in recent months, this tall blond with piercing blue eyes appeared thin and aged. He had a series of health problems linked to a hunger strike and the poisoning he suffered in 2020 and which he miraculously survived.
Poisoned in 2020
Prison had not dampened his determination. During the hearings and in messages posted on social networks through his lawyers, he continues to insult Vladimir Putin, described as “grandpa hiding in a bunker”, because the Russian president rarely appears in public .
In his trial for “extremism”, he castigated “the stupidest and most senseless war of the 21ste century,” referring to the Russian assault on Ukraine.
In his online messages, he jokes about the bullying that the prison administration subjects him to.
In a message on 1er February broadcast by his team on social networks, he called for demonstrations throughout Russia during the presidential election scheduled for March 15 to 17 and which should allow Vladimir Putin to remain in power.
The Russian president’s victory seems assured because opponents, led by Mr. Navalny, have been imprisoned or driven into exile in recent years, and repression has increased further since the start of Moscow’s assault in Ukraine, triggered on February 24, 2022.
More details will follow.