Comments
Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has died in prison, the Interfax news service reported Friday, citing the Federal Penitentiary Service.
President Vladimir Putin’s most outspoken critic “felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” Interfax cited the prison service as saying. Medical services were unable to revive him, according to a statement by the service, which gave no cause of death for the 47-year-old activist.
Putin has been “informed” about Navalny’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.
Navalny was declared dead as Putin began campaigning for a fifth term as president in March 17 elections. The Kremlin leader had always refused to call Navalny by his name in an effort to belittle the man he dismissed as a “blogger,” but who’d gathered widespread support for his attempts to expose corruption and seek public office.
Navalny was barred from running in 2018 presidential elections. Months before Putin ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Navalny’s nationwide network of opposition political activists was declared “extremist” and ordered to disband.
Alexey Navalny, Corruption Fighter Who Defied Putin, Dies at 47
In December, just as Putin was preparing to announce his candidacy, Navalny was transferred to a remote Arctic prison camp, IK-3, in Russia’s Yamal-Nenets region, after nearly three weeks in which his whereabouts were unknown to his allies and lawyers. The settlement is about 3,300 kilometers (2,050 miles) by road from Navalny’s previous jail about 100 kilometers outside Moscow.
Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in August after a court convicted him of “extremism” in a trial held inside a strict-regime prison. He was already serving a nine-year term for fraud and contempt of court imposed after he returned to Moscow in 2021 from Germany.
The US and the European Union had called for Navalny’s release, condemning his convictions as politically motivated.
(Updates with Kremlin comment in third paragraph, details throughout)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.