Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in custody, has been transferred to a cell with space for only one person, according to a message on his Instagram account.
Navalny had been placed in an individual confinement cell, also known as a “punishment cell,” on November 1, but could only be there for 15 days, according to the message released.
He considered the space of his new confinement as “an ordinary cell, like a punishment cell, except that one can have not one but two books, and use the prison kiosk, albeit on a very limited budget.” .
Navalny, 46, the most prominent opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security prison 250 kilometers east of Moscow.
He was arrested in January 2021, upon his return from Germany, where he was recovering from a poisoning blamed by the Kremlin.
At the time, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for violating probation, and this year received another nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court.
Navalny dismissed the accusations as politically motivated, which Western states support, calling them an attempt by Russian authorities to keep him behind bars and out of politics for as long as possible.
Prior to his most recent prison sentence, Navalny was the main force behind an anti-corruption website, exposing alleged malpractice by members of Russia’s top decision-making circles.
Source: TSF
