Alexei Navalny, Putin’s main critic, dies in Russian Prison

A notable Russian opposition leader and President Vladimir Putin’s critic, Alexei Navalny, has died in an Arctic Circle jail at the age of 47.

The prison service said Navalny who was serving a 19-year jail term on charges widely considered politically motivated was moved to Russia’s toughest penal colonies in late 2023.

BBC quoted the prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district as saying Navalny had felt unwell after a walk on Friday.

It said an emergency medical team was called immediately to resuscitate him but all efforts were futile.

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“The emergency doctors declared the prisoner dead. Cause of death is being established.”

“On February 16, 2024, in penal colony No. 3, convict A.A. Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” the prison service for the Yamalo-Nenets region, where Navalny was moved, said in a statement on its website.

“The facility’s medical workers immediately arrived at the scene and an emergency medical team was called in. All necessary resuscitation measures have been carried out, but they did not yield positive results. Emergency medics confirmed the death of the convict,” the statement added.

Navalny’s lawyer Leonid Solovyov told Russian media he would not comment on the sad incident yet.

Meanwhile, Navalny’s close aide Leonid Volkov, wrote on X: “Russian authorities publish a confession that they killed Alexei Navalny in prison. We do not have any way to confirm it or to prove this isn’t true.”

Since the start of Ukraine’s war on February 24, 2022, many of Putin’s critics, have died mysteriously. Among them were Yevgeny Prigozhin and Ravil Maganov.

Wagner Group mercenaries leader, Prigozhin, died in a private jet crash somewhere in Tver region on August 24, 2023.

Also, the chairman of the board of Russia’s second largest oil producer Lukoil, Maganov, who had openly criticised the war in Ukraine died in 2022.