‘Missing’ Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny is in Arctic prison colony | World News

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is in a penal colony in the Yamal-Nenets region of Russia, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said as per news agency Reuters after Navalny’s lawyer managed to see him.

The United States had voiced concern over the fate of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny who has not been heard from since early December.

“We are deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Alexei Navalny, who has now been missing in Russia’s prison system for nearly three weeks,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on X (formerly Twitter).

“We once more call for his immediate release and an end to the continued repression of independent voices in Russia,” he added while UN rights expert Mariana Katzarova also joined a chorus of voices expressing concern at Alexei Navalny’s “enforced disappearance.”

His lawyers were unable to see or contact him since December 6. On December 15, Alexei Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said a court representative told her that he had been removed from a prison near Moscow. He was then taken to an undisclosed location possibly to a harsher prison following a court ruling earlier this year.

Alexei Navalny’s team said that his possible transfer to another prison has been purposefully timed as ahead of Vladimir Putin’s expected re-election in March.

Alexei Navalny, 47, Vladimir Putin’s main political opponent, was barred from running in elections in 2018. He received a 19-year prison sentence in 2021 on charges of “extremism”.