Great concern for Kremlin critics: Still no sign of life from Navalny Poland before change of government: Morawiecki asks question of confidence

With no sign of life from jailed Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny for days, concerns are growing about the 47-year-old. The lawyer has now learned that Navalny is not present in prison camps six and seven in the Vladimir region.

Opposition spokesperson Kira Jarmysch announced this on Monday on news service X (formerly Twitter). There was still no answer on Friday about Navalny’s whereabouts. Now the supervisors have apparently been allowed to tell the lawyer that the opponent of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is no longer there.

“We still don’t know where Alexei is,” Yarmysh said. Concerns about Navalny’s health increased the morning after he missed another court hearing. It is already the sixth day when it is not clear “what will happen to him”. The politician’s lawsuits against prison authorities are currently being heard at a court in the city of Kovrov.

Since Thursday, Navalny has no longer been associated with the trial as usual. The prison camp management justified this with alleged problems with the power supply, Jarmysch wrote. Last week, a representative of the prison camp told journalists that the problems would be resolved as soon as possible. At the same time, the lawyers have no longer had access to Navalny since last Wednesday.

Concerns about Navalny are especially great because, according to Yarmysch, he fell ill in his cell two weeks ago. Letters from or to Navalny would also not be delivered. Navalny’s team also launched the ‘Russia without Putin’ campaign last week ahead of the presidential elections on March 17, 2024. The team called on people to vote for other candidates to prevent the 71-year-old Kremlin leader from becoming leader re-elected.

Navalny was last held in a prison camp in the town of Kovrov in the Vladimir region, about 160 miles east of Moscow. He was sentenced to 19 years in a prison camp and is internationally classified as a political prisoner. The opposition figure, who also complained of torture in custody, narrowly survived an assassination attempt using the chemical warfare agent Novichok in August 2020. Navalny had blamed Putin and a team from the domestic secret service FSB for the attack. (sda/dpa)