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The death of Alexei Navalny, who for many years was the main political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been confirmed. This was announced by Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, who said that the news of the death was communicated by the Russian authorities to the mother of the Russian opponent, Lyudmila.
The news of Navalny’s death was initially reported on Friday by the Russian penitentiary service, but neither his family nor his collaborators were able to confirm it. Yarmysh said on Saturday morning that Navalny’s mother had confirmed this after going to the prison where her son was being held, the IK-3 maximum security prison, almost 2,000 kilometers from Moscow and above the Arctic Circle Arctic.
Yarmysh said Navalny died at 2.17pm local time on Friday 16 February (10.17am Italian time), and that the body would later be transferred to the nearby Salekhard penitentiary facility, where a morgue and crematorium are located. Yarmysh did not say whether the causes of Navalny’s death have been announced, nor whether an autopsy has already been performed. He also requested that the body be immediately handed over to the family.
Yarmysh later said that Navalny’s mother and lawyer went to the Salekhard morgue on Saturday morning, but found it closed. He added that they called the telephone number they found on the door and were told that theirs was the seventh call of the morning and that Navalny’s body is not in the morgue.
Alexey Navalny was murdered. His death occurred on February 16 at 2:17 p.m. local time, according to the official message to Alexey’s mother.
An employee of the colony said that the body of Navalny is now in Salekhard. It was picked up by investigators from the IC. Now they are…
— Kira Yarmysh (@Kira_Yarmysh) February 17, 2024
The Russian penitentiary service said on Friday that Navalny had “felt ill after a walk” and had “lost consciousness almost immediately”. He also said that medical staff would arrive immediately and that an ambulance would be called, but that “all efforts made to resuscitate him” had been unsuccessful.
The site RTcontrolled by the Russian government, had said that according to some of its sources, Navalny died due to the detachment of a blood clot (i.e. a thrombus that could have caused a stroke, pulmonary embolism or heart attack).
– Read also: Alexei Navalny, the dissident
Navalny was 47 years old and considered Putin’s best-known and most combative opponent of the last decade. He had been in prison for three years on charges believed to be politically motivated, and was transferred to the IK-3 maximum security prison in December.
In 2020 he risked dying after a poisoning attempt which according to him and according to many reconstructions had been ordered by the Russian secret services. He spent a few months in Germany for treatment, and then voluntarily returned to Russia in January 2021, when he was immediately arrested for some charges against him. At the time of his death he was serving a long sentence for charges that the vast majority of commentators and experts on freedom of expression considered specious, including that of having founded and financed activities and organizations that the Russian authorities consider “extremist”. He was also accused in 14 trials which in all likelihood would have further lengthened his sentence.
During his last period in prison Navalny had been close to dying several times, according to what his lawyers had reported, also due to the terrible conditions in which he was detained: the last prison he had been in, IK-3, it is known for its extremely isolated location and the brutality with which inmates are treated. There are testimonies of physical and psychological violence inflicted by prison officials, as well as a lack of clothing and other basic necessities.
His lawyers and several activists believed that he had been transferred there to isolate him as much as possible from his collaborators in view of the Russian presidential elections, scheduled for next March, in which Putin will run for his fifth term as president. Putin has been in power continuously since 1999, and has governed in an authoritarian manner for years now.