Alexei Navalny, a jailed critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, revealed on Tuesday the details of his tormented relocation to a high-security prison colony in the Arctic region, which had kept him hidden from the public for almost three weeks and even raised questions about his health.
Writing on X, Navalny described his multiple moves over the past few days. In early December, the 47-year-old activist was transferred from the Vladimir area of central Russia, where he was serving a jail sentence on fraud charges, all the way to Moscow; then again 1,500 kilometers east to Chelyabinsk and the nearby city of Yekaterinburg, before being relocated to Kirov in central Russia and to the Arctic city of Vorkuta. Eventually, he arrived at his final destination in the village of Kharp.
“The 20 days of my transportation were pretty exhausting, but I’m still in a good mood,” Navalny wrote on the social media previously known as Twitter. “I was transported with such precaution and on such a strange route that I didn’t expect anyone to find me here before mid-January,” he added.
The dissident is now serving a 19-year jail term in a tougher “special-regime” colony that was formerly used as a gulag during the Soviet era. Navalny himself likened his prison colony’s austere and claustrophobic surroundings to a film that included “the same beautiful fluffy shepherd dogs, machine guns, warm mittens and felt boots.” The Kremlin critic said he was “very surprised” when his attorney found him and paid him a visit on Monday in the Far North jail.
1/9 I am your new Santa Claus.
Well, I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (a traditional Russian winter footwear). I have grown a beard for the 20 days of my transportation.
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) December 26, 2023
The long-distance transfer is a consequence of his latest sentencing on August 4, when he was given an additional 19 years in prison on charges of “extremism” that he and his supporters claim are politically motivated.
His disappearance occurred at a critical juncture in Russia’s history. On December 7, Navaly’s website aired a video in which he asked Russians to vote for any candidate “except Vladimir Putin”, one day before the latter declared his candidacy for the March 17, 2024, presidential election in Russia – which the incumbent is predicted to win.
Most experts predict From that it will now be much harder for Navalny to maintain his outspoken criticism of Putin from his new Arctic residence.
Not all of Putin’s opponents end up in jail. One of them, former TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova, was just disqualified from running for president. Duntsova declared she would challenge Putin in the spring election on a platform of ending the conflict with Ukraine. Three days after her application, however, the electoral committee unanimously decided to reject her candidacy, citing one hundred “mistakes” on her form.
