Navalny, the toughest opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, wrote on his Telegram channel that he was transferred to the IK-6 prison in the village of Melekhovo in the Vladimir region, about 155 miles east of Moscow. “My space journey continues,” a seemingly optimistic Navalny joked on Wednesday. “I have moved from ship to ship. In other words, greetings to all of you from a strict regime zone “. He said he was in quarantine, but did not say why or what his condition was. Navalny also complained that he “almost lost it” as he had to move his huge collection of books from one prison to another. “Yesterday for the first time in my life I was carrying these bags and I thought burning books was not necessarily bad,” he joked. Until this week, Navalny was serving an 11-1 / 2 year prison sentence in the IK-2 penal colony in the village of Pokrov in the Vladimir region. Alexei Navalny wrote on his Telegram channel that he was transferred to the IK-6 prison in the village of Melekhovo in the Vladimir region. Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images But when his lawyer arrived at the padlock on Tuesday to meet him, he was told: “There is no such convict here.” “We do not know where Alexei is now and to which colony he is being transferred,” Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov told the Telegram. Hours later, regional prison observer Sergei Yazan said by telephone that Navalny had been transferred to the infamous Melekhovo prison colony. IK-6 High Security Prison is known as the “conveyor belt of torture”. Alexander Nemenov / AFP via Getty Images The prison in Melechovo has become synonymous with allegations of brutal torture and systematic rape of detainees. A former inmate told the independent Russian media outlet Mediazona last year how he saw another convict being brutally beaten and sodomized with a pipe to extract a confession. Navalny himself referred to the prison’s horrific reputation last month when he first learned he could be transferred there. Until this week, Alexei Navalny was serving an 11-1 / 2 year prison sentence in the IK-2 penal colony. AFP via Getty Images “They say that if you google ‘Melekhovo’, there will be prisoner stories about how they get their nails out there,” he wrote on Instagram. Navalny was initially sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for violating parole in February 2021 after returning voluntarily from Germany, where he was recovering from an apparent Novichok nerve poisoning in Russia that the Kremlin accused him of ordering. On March 24, Navalny was sentenced to another nine years in prison for fraud and contempt of court. The high-profile dissident says the charges against him were fabricated and politically motivated. Alexei Navalny was initially sentenced to two and a half years in prison for breaches of parole and another nine years for fraud and contempt of court.Andrey Rudakov / Bloomberg via Getty Images The judge ordered that Navalny, who described Russia’s war in Ukraine as “stupid,” be transferred to a high-security prison, where his rights to visit and correspond would be reduced. Navalny said two weeks ago that he had been charged in a new criminal case with setting up an extremist organization and inciting hatred against the authorities, offenses punishable by up to 15 years in prison. With postal cables
