Alexei Navalny, main opponent to Putin, has died, Russian prison service says – Technologist

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died on Friday, February 16, at the Arctic prison colony where he was serving a 19-year term, Russia’s federal penitentiary service said in a statement. Navalny lost consciousness after going for a walk and could not be revived by medics, the prison service said.

“Navalny felt bad after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness. Medical staff arrived immediately and an ambulance team was called. Resuscitation measures were carried out which did not yield positive results. Paramedics confirmed the death of the convict. The causes of death are being established,” the statement said.

Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh said his team had not been informed of his death. “We have no confirmation on this yet,” she said on social media, adding: “Alexei’s lawyer is currently on his way to Kharp [the Arctic town where Navalny’s prison is]. As soon as we have some information, we will report on it.”

President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the death of his most prominent opponent, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov. “It has been reported to the president,” Peskov told journalists, adding that “it should be up to the medics to clarify” the cause of death.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation into his death.

Ukraine presidential aide Andriy Yermak said the Russian leader is “afraid of any competition,” in comments after the announcement of the death of Navalny. “Putin is the ultimate evil who is afraid of any competition. The lives of Russians are nothing to him,” Yermak wrote on Telegram, adding, “everyone who calls for negotiations must realize that he cannot be trusted. The only language he understands is force.”

Arctic penal colony

Navalny, who was aged 47, disappeared in early December from a corrective colony in the Vladimir oblast, 250 kilometers east of Moscow, where he had been held until then. His family had no news of him for several days before the authorities announced that he had been transferred to a penal colony in the Russian Arctic.

His allies decried the transfer to a colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, as yet another attempt to force Navalny into silence. The remote region is notorious for long and severe winters. Kharp is about 100 kilometers from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were part of the Soviet gulag prison-camp system.

Navalny had been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned against official corruption, organized major anti-Kremlin protests and ran for public office. He had since received three prison sentences, all of which he rejected as politically motivated.

Foreign reactions

Western governments and Russian opposition figures said on Friday that the Kremlin was responsible for his death.

France said that Navalny had paid dearly for resisting “oppression” under Putin. “Alexei Navalny paid with his life for his resistance to a system of oppression,” French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said on X. “His death at a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime,” Séjourné said, expressing condolences to Navalny’s family and the Russian people.

Moscow bears a “heavy responsibility” over the death of Navalny, Norway’s foreign minister reacted. “The Russian government bears a heavy responsibility,” Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide wrote on X, adding that he was “deeply saddened by the news.” Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics said Navalny had been “brutally murdered by the Kremlin” after Russian authorities announced his death.