Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny has died in jail.
Russia’s Federal Prison Service said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk this morning and lost consciousness.
An ambulance arrived to try to rehabilitate him, but he died.
Navalny looked healthy when he appeared by video for a courtroom appeal on Thursday, February 15, 2024.
He seemed to be in good spirits during the court hearing, where he was filmed laughing and joking.
Navalny, 47, one of Putin’s most visible and persistent critics, was in the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900km (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a “special regime.”
Navalny has been imprisoned since January 2021 when he returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Before he was arrested, he led massive campaigns against corruption and organised major anti-Kremlin protests.
Jailed on charges of extremism, he saw his sentence extended to 19 years in 2023.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin has been told of the Navalny’s death and Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a procedural probe into the death.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Calls Navalny’s Death Murder
Russian newspaper editor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Dmitry Muratov opined that the death of jailed opposition leader, Alexei Navalny was “murder.”
He said that he believed prison conditions had led to Navalny’s demise.
Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of staff, said that the statement from the prison service announcing the death of Navalny could be interpreted as a “confession” that they deliberately killed him, although his team is yet to verify the information.
Volkov posted on X, “Russian authorities publish a confession that they killed Alexei Navalny in prison. We do not have any way to confirm it or to prove this isn’t true.”
A number of world leaders reacted to the news of the death of Navalny.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that it is “obvious” that Vladimir Putin was directly behind the death of Alexei Navalny.
Speaking in Germany, the Ukrainian leader said that the Russian President does not care who dies so long as his position as the Head of the state is secure.
Also, Latvian President, Edgars Rinkevics said on X that Navalny was “brutally murdered by the Kremlin.”
“Whatever your thoughts about Alexei Navalny as the politician, he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. That’s a fact and that is something one should know about the true nature of Russia’s current regime.”
Edgars Rinkevics
EU council President, Charles Michel said that the European Union holds Russia responsible for the death of Navalny.
Michel noted that Navalny fought for the values of freedom and democracy.
“For his ideals, he made the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.
The U.S Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, also commented on the death of the Putin critic.
“First and foremost, if these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family. Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this.
“We’ll be talking to the many other countries concerned about Alexei Navalny, especially if these reports bear out to be true.”
Antony Blinken
The UK Foreign Secretary, David Cameron said Vladimir Putin “should be accountable” for Alexei Navalny’s death – saying that the state under Putin “fabricated charges […] poisoned him, sent him to an Arctic penal colony.”
NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg said that he was “deeply saddened and disturbed” by the reports on Navalny’s death.
Stoltenberg said, “We need to establish all the facts, and Russia needs to answer all the serious questions about the circumstances of his death.”
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