Aleksei Navalny, a jailed critic of the Kremlin, is thought to have been moved from the central Russian prison where he was being detained, but his current whereabouts are unknown.
Navalny was scheduled to be moved from the IK-6 prison in the Vladimir region to a more stringent “special-regime” colony. At the end of August, a court sentenced 47-year-old Navalny to 19 years in prison, accusing him of founding an organization that compromised state security through “extremist activities.”
Later on Tuesday, the Baza Telegram channel claimed, citing unidentified sources, that Navalny might have been sent to Moscow for investigations related to a new criminal case. Navalny was notified last month that he was being investigated by Russia’s Investigative Committee on two accusations of “vandalism”.
Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, stated on December 11 on X that one of Navalny’s attorneys received word at the IK-6 prison colony in the Vladimir area that his client “is no longer on their list of inmates.” “They refuse to say where [Navalny] was transferred to,” Yarmysh added in the post.
When he was found guilty in August of organizing an extremist group, his sentence was doubled to 19 years, raising the potential that he will be transferred to a more severe “special regime” prison.
The decision was made in the days following the start of a billboard campaign by Navalny’s team urging Russians to vote against President Vladimir Putin, who declared on December 8 that he would contest in the presidential election scheduled for March 17.
