Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny vanished from prison last week, with no explanation from the authorities and no information about where he was taken.
His spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on Monday that his whereabouts are still unknown.
Yarmysh posted about Navalny’s disappearance on Twitter after Navalny failed to appear in a court video conference.
“It is already the sixth straight day that we don’t know where Alexei is and what is happening to him,” she wrote.
Yarmysh said Navalny’s lawyers attempted to contact two prison colonies he might have been transferred to. Their communications were ignored for several days but on Monday both prison colonies told the lawyers that Navalny was not one of their inmates.
File/Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his wife Yulia, opposition politician Lyubov Sobol and other demonstrators march in memory of murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in downtown Moscow on February 29, 2020. ( KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images)
Officials at the jail in Melekhovo where Navalny has been held since last year told Yarmysh there were “electricity problems” at the facility which prevented Navalny from attending his scheduled video conference with the court.
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell Fontelles said on Tuesday that Navalny’s disappearance is “highly worrying.” He stressed that the Russian government is responsible for Navalny’s “safety and health in prison.”
“The EU reiterates its call for his immediate and unconditional release from politically motivated incarceration,” Borrell added.
Navalny, 47, was arrested upon his return to Moscow in January 2021 after surviving a chemical weapons attack, which he accused Russian strongman Vladimir Putin of ordering. He was convicted of “extremism” by a closed-door trial in August 2023 and sentenced to 19 more years in prison, after several previous convictions gave him nine years of prison time. Navalny and his allies say all of the charges against him were politically motivated.
“I understand perfectly that, as many political prisoners, I’m serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime,” Navalny said after his sentencing in August.
File/Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appears from prison on a video link provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, at a courtroom in Vladimir, Russia, Tuesday, June 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Vladimir Kondrashov)
Navalny’s camp says his sudden disappearance and presumed transfer to a harsh “special regime” penal colony are also politically motivated since Putin announced on Friday he will run for re-election in 2024. Putin has already won four dubious “elections” as president, and was prime minister before that. His almost certain “re-election” in 2024 will keep the 71-year-old authoritarian in power well into the 2030s.
Yarmysh said on Tuesday she fears Navalny’s abrupt prison transfer might be a ploy to kill him off before Putin mounts his re-election campaign.
“Prisoner transfers are dangerous primarily because, during this time, a person is deprived of all protection and assistance. In Alexei’s case, he’s essentially alone with people who have previously tried to kill him, so the situation is very dangerous,” she told the Moscow Times.
“It’s no secret to Putin who his main opponent is in these ‘elections.’ And he wants to make sure that Navalny’s voice is not heard,” said Navalny ally Leonid Volkov.
The Moscow Times quoted online speculation that Navalny “could have been transported to Moscow to undergo investigative actions in a fresh criminal case,” possibly related to “vandalism” charges brought by the Russian Investigative Committee in early December.
