Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s whereabouts and condition have been unknown for nearly a week after he reportedly suffered a serious health incident, his team said on Monday.
“It has already been the sixth day since we haven’t known where Alexei is or what’s happening to him,” Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
His team said that Navalny had not been connected via video link to court hearings taking place inside the prison where he is held, with prison officials citing “electricity problems” as the reason.
“We have learned that last week he had a serious health-related incident. Navalny’s life is at great risk. He is in complete isolation right now,” Maria Pevchikh, his close ally and the chair of the board of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said Friday, adding that “his lawyers are refused entry and asked to wait.”
Yarmysh later said that authorities at the Vladimir region penal colony where Navalny was serving his sentence, IK-6, told his lawyer on Monday that he is “no longer listed” as a prisoner.
A neighboring Vladimir region penal colony just north of where Navalny was being held, IK-7, similarly told the opposition figure’s lawyer that they have no records of Navalny’s whereabouts, Yarmysh said.
Navalny, 47, was jailed in 2021 after returning to Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a nearly fatal poisoning attack with Novichok, a Soviet-designed nerve agent.
In August, a court handed him a 19-year jail term, accusing him of having created an organization that undermined public security by carrying out “extremist activities.”
His team said that his health has significantly deteriorated in prison. Navalny has also been sent to an isolation cell at least 21 times.
In October, three of Navalny’s lawyers were arrested, leading his team to caution that Russian authorities aim to tighten their control over his communications beyond the prison confines.
“Nobody is allowed to see me. I am completely isolated from information,” Navalny said during a court hearing in October.
Source: The Moscow Times
