Correspondent in Moscow
The link seems explicit between the Kremlin’s political agenda and the very worrying situation of the opponent Alexeï Navaly, whose relatives had not heard from him for a week on Tuesday. Russia’s best-known political prisoner was last seen on December 5 in the IK-6 penal colony in Milikhovo, 235 kilometers east of Moscow, where he is serving a 30-year prison sentence for various convictions . The next day, his lawyer was refused access to the prison. In the following days, Navalny did not appear via video link at further hearings to which he was summoned, this time for “vandalism” – officially because of “electric power” problems in the colony….
Finally, on December 11, prison staff told the lawyer that his client was no longer on the colony’s list of inmates, without specifying where he was. A situation considered worrying by Alexei Navalny’s supporters, according to whom he could have been transferred to a remote place of detention with an even harsher regime than IK-6 where he has been imprisoned since 2021. Washington reacted by saying it was very “very concerned” by the lack of information regarding the opponent’s whereabouts, calling once again for his immediate release.
This “disappearance” of Alexeï Navalny, considered the beast of the Kremlin, is concomitant with the announcement, last Thursday, by the Council of the Federation, the Russian Senate, of the date of the next presidential election, March 17, 2024 Last Friday, Vladimir Putin declared himself, unsurprisingly, a candidate for a fifth term. At the same time, the opponent’s team also launched the campaign by calling on Telegram for Russians to “go to the polling stations and vote against Vladimir Putin”. According to Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s close collaborator, now in exile, the situation inflicted on the opponent in recent days therefore constitutes “O% a coincidence” with the Russian president’s political calendar. “It’s no secret who Putin’s main opponent is in this “election,” says Mr. Volkov, quoted by the Xholod website. The Kremlin leader “wants to ensure that Navalny’s voice is not heard.” It is true that despite his imprisonment, the 46-year-old prisoner, survivor of a poisoning attributed to the Russian “services” in August 2020, continued to intervene thanks to his lawyers and his supporters.
Everyone declares themselves extremely concerned about the state of health of Alexeï Navalny who is very regularly sent to a punitive isolation cell measuring two by three meters without ventilation where he is prohibited from lying down from 6 to 22 hours. “A few days before his disappearance, he felt dizzy and was put on a drip,” his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said, adding that Navalny was “literally tortured by hunger.” During his detention, he appeared very thin and lost around twenty kilos. He was diagnosed with two herniated discs and is also said to be suffering from a stomach illness.
