MOSCOW.-Alexei Navalny, the staunchest enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who fought against official corruption and organized mass protests against the Kremlin, died on Friday in prison, according to the country’s penitentiary service. He was 47 years old.
Navalny felt unwell after a walk on Friday and lost consciousness, the Federal Penitentiary Service explained in a statement. The ambulance that arrived at the penal colony where he was serving his sentence tried to revive him but he died.
The opposition’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, said on X, formerly Twitter, that her team had no confirmation of the death and that her lawyer was traveling to the town where he was imprisoned.
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges, was transferred in December from a prison in Vladimir, central Russia, to a “special regime” penal colony — the highest security level in the prison system. Russian — above the Arctic Circle.
His allies called his transfer to the prison in Kharp, a town in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, as another attempt to force Navalny into silence.
This remote region is known for its long, harsh winters. Kharp is about 100 km (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were part of the Soviet-era gulag system.
Navalny had been in prison since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned against corruption in officialdom, organized massive protests against the Kremlin and stood for election to public office.
Since then, he received three prison sentences that he rejected on the grounds that they were politically motivated.
Source: With information from AP
