Alexei Navalny, Russia’s and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent political opposition figure, has died in a remote Russian prison at age 47.
News of Navalny’s death came Friday from the Federal Penitentiary Service in Russia’s Arctic.
Alexei Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, rose to prominence more than a decade ago with blogs on what he said was vast corruption and opulence among the “crooks and thieves” of Russia’s elite.
The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, into the Arctic Circle.
He lost consciousness almost immediately, it said.
“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results,” the prison service said, adding that causes of death were being established.
The Kremlin said President Vladimir Putin was told about the death of Alexei Navalny, which brought a torrent of from the West, some saying the Russian leader bore responsibility.
Video source: BBC News (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgydMTmhs50)
Alexei Navalny had been serving out a lengthy prison sentence, for charges including extremism, which were widely seen as punishment for his years of criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin has been informed of Navalny’s death. He said prison medics are working to identify the cause of death.
Former UN ambassador and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Friday blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the reported death of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
“Putin did this. The same Putin who Donald Trump praises and defends. The same Trump who said: ‘In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that,’” Haley posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Reactions swiftly poured in from around the world. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Alexei Navalny’s “death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this.”
Concerns over Navalny’s well-being had mounted after Navalny failed to appear by video feed from his prison cell for two court hearings in early December. Officials at prison colony IK-6, in the Vladimir region some 140 miles east of Moscow, blamed his absence on “electricity problems” — but later informed Navalny’s lawyers the opposition figure was no longer listed among inmates.
His family members and supporters say authorities repeatedly denied Alexei Navalny medical care, and subjected him to long, punishing stints in solitary confinement with the apparent aim of preventing his access to the outside world. A representative of his Anti-Corruption Foundation in Washington, D.C., expressed the belief in April that Navalny was slowly being poisoned in prison.
“Nobody is allowed to see me,” said Navalny, appearing gaunt during a court hearing in October. “I am completely isolated from information.”
In 2021, US president Biden, after meeting with Putin in Geneva, was asked about what would happen if Alexey Navalny in Russian custody. ” I made it clear to him that I believe the consequences of that would ve devastating for Russia” Biden said.
Alexey Navalny had been serving out a 19-year prison sentence on charges including extremism, embezzlement and fraud — widely seen as Kremlin retribution for his political activities.
A vehement critic of President Putin for more than a decade, Navalny built a national following with campaigns that channeled public outrage over corruption at the highest level of government — and promoted a vision that Russians could, one day, live differently.
Even from his prison cell, he was a critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s increasingly repressive rule.
Indeed, in the days before Alexey Navalny disappearance in December, the opposition figure unveiled a campaign to rally Russians against Putin when he runs for a fifth term as president in elections scheduled for March.