The Russian opposition chief has been tracked all the way down to a jail above the Arctic Circle, one of many harshest in Russia.
Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny has been tracked all the way 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 mentioned 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 mentioned, including: “Alexey is alright.”
The Kremlin critic’s whereabouts had not been known 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 may take weeks in Russia as a result of prisoners are slowly moved by rail between far-flung amenities.
They’d been making ready for his anticipated switch to a “particular regime” colony, the harshest grade in Russia’s jail system.
The district of Kharp is house to about 5,000 individuals and is positioned about 60km (40 miles) above the Arctic Circle.
His new house, 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 because of drop to about minus 28 levels Celsius (minus 18 levels Fahrenheit) there over the subsequent week.
“It’s virtually unimaginable to get to this colony. It’s virtually unimaginable to even ship letters there. That is the best potential degree of isolation from the world,” Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, mentioned 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 towards 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 USA intelligence company, and say they’re searching for to destabilise Russia.
A courtroom extended Navalny’s sentence to 19 years on extremism prices and dominated that he be moved to a safer, harsher jail.
He has rejected all prices towards him as politically motivated.
Navalny’s supporters imagine he was intentionally being hidden after President Vladimir Putin introduced he’s searching for re-election in March, a vote through 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.
