A jailed Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, has been transferred from his prison colony to an unknown location, his aide said. The group told him they did not know where the anti-corruption activist, Vladimir Putin’s most recognizable critic of Russia and his inner circle, was headed. The 46-year-old returned to Russia in January 2021 after recovering in a German hospital from a failed assassination attempt orchestrated by Russia’s security service. He was arrested immediately after his plane crashed in Moscow and has been detained ever since. The lawyer and presidential candidate was initially sentenced to two and a half years in prison for breaches of parole, but his sentence was increased by nine years in March for alleged fraud and contempt of court. Mr Navalny is widely regarded as a political prisoner and his supporters, including Western governments, say the charges against him are fabricated. There has been no comment from the Kremlin or any other authority in Russia on where it was taken. “We do not know where Alexei is now and to which colony he is being transferred,” Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of staff, told the Telegram. Navalny, pictured in court last year, survived a stroke attempt using the novichok nerve agent (Image: AP) To view this video, enable JavaScript and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Another spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said it became clear he had only been transferred after his lawyer spent hours in his old jail waiting for information. He wrote on Twitter: “As long as we do not know where Alexei is, he remains one-on-one with the system that has already tried to kill him, so our main task now is to locate him as soon as possible.” When his sentence was increased, the war critic in Ukraine was informed by a judge that he would be sent to a high-security facility, where access to visits and external communication is more limited. He previously served his sentence in Penitentiary Colony No. 2, a prison camp in Pokrov, 74 miles east of Moscow. Mr Navalny’s allies and activists have been jailed or forced into exile by the police, with his organization being described as “extremist” by the state. His team confirmed two weeks ago that he had been charged with a new criminal case. Prosecutors allege he set up an extremist organization and accused him of inciting hatred against the authorities, offenses that carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Contact our news team by emailing us at [email protected] For more stories like this, check out our news page.
