“I’m doing well,” read a message published Tuesday on Russian opponent Alexei Navalny’s social networking account X (formerly Twitter), confirming his transfer to a prison in Russia’s Arctic. After Navalny’s whereabouts were unknown for nearly three weeks, his supporters reported Monday that he was being held in a prison colony near the Ural Mountains in the Arctic.
The journey to the new place of detention took 20 “quite tiring” days, Navalny said on the social network. “I was transported so carefully and by such a strange route (…) that I did not expect anyone to find me here before mid-January,” he reported.
“Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’m doing well. I’m relieved to finally be here,” the Russian opponent added.
8/9 Anyway, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m completely relieved that I finally did it.
Thanks again to everyone for your support. And happy holidays!
– Alexey Navalny (@navalny) December 26, 2023
Alexei Navalny, anti-corruption activist, oppositionist and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was arrested in 2021 and later sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Kharp, a small town of about 5,000 inhabitants, is located in Yamalo-Nenetsia, a remote region of northern Russia, north of the Arctic Circle, and is home to several prison colonies.
Accused of extremism, Navalny must serve his sentence in a “special regime” colony, a category of institutions where detention conditions are the harshest and normally reserved for prisoners serving life sentences and the most dangerous detainees, according to the court ruling .
One of the colonies of the “special regime” is located precisely in Kharp, colony number 18, or “Polar Owl”.
Russian prison services admitted on December 15 that Navalny had been transferred from Vladimir prison, where he had been serving his sentence since June 2022, but did not indicate what his new destination would be.
The opposing lawyers, sentenced to 30 years in prison, had no contact with their client since December 5 and their associates launched the global campaign “Where is Navalny?”.
On December 7, Navalny appealed from prison to vote against Putin in the March 17 elections.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern over the lack of information on Alexei Navalny’s whereabouts and demanded the Kremlin’s release as soon as possible.
In the same message, Blinken demanded the “immediate release” of the Russian opponent and that President Vladimir Putin’s government stop “suppressing independent voices in Russia.”
Source: DN
