BBC News Brazil
He felt sick and passed out. This is all that is currently known about the death of Vladimir Putin's most outspoken opponent, Alexei Navalni, 47, in one of Russia's most remote and inaccessible prisons.
Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed the news from the prison where he was being held, the socalled “Arctic Wolf” colony, where prisoners live in very harsh conditions.
The late political dissident's lawyers went to the prison in the YamalNenets region in the Arctic Circle.
He was moved there in early December 2023 after being missing for two weeks. It reappeared in this special colony about 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, where winter temperatures reach 40°C.
Many human rights defenders claim that Russian authorities are using weather conditions as a method of punishment.
With Navalni separated from his family and supporters, his visiting regime and access to letters and emails were restricted. He lived in a cell where you couldn't see the sky.
In every prison he visited, Navalni was often sent to solitary confinement for minor infractions. In solitary confinement, where it is always very cold, it is not possible to store personal belongings. The bed is attached to the wall during the day and its use is a violation.
Extreme conditions and strict control
The Russian prison network is known for its extreme conditions. This particular unit is located in a very inaccessible area of Siberia, where months pass between one flight and the next and is only accessible by train.
Speaking to BBC News Mundo, the BBC's news service in Spanish, Konstantin Kotov, a former prisoner from another complex where Navalni was previously imprisoned, explained that there is a very strict prison regime in Russia. According to Kotov, prison authorities have full control over all aspects of a convict's life.
“Depending on the time of year, you may be standing in an extremely cold or hot environment for more than an hour twice a day,” he said. “All conversations are monitored. If a prisoner says something bad about prison to his relatives, he will be punished. It is very difficult to get a meeting with a lawyer, it is made as difficult as possible.”
The extreme surveillance was confirmed by Alexei Navalni, who said in an Instagram message that there were “video cameras everywhere.” “Everyone is monitored and warnings are issued at the slightest violation,” he said.
A Soviet legacy
Special regime colonies are facilities with stricter prison conditions. According to the Russian Criminal Code, convicts are sent there to serve life imprisonment or for “repeating particularly dangerous crimes.” Human rights activists say IK3 prison houses serial killers, rapists and pedophiles.
Penal colonies are descendants of the Sovietera gulags, the famous Stalinera forced labor camps where thousands of Russians were killed between 1930 and 1950.
Up to 170 prisoners were held in each cell. It is estimated that 20 million people died during Stalin's regime.
The IK3 penal colony, founded in 1961, was built on the site of the former Gulag 501. Navalni, who recently attended a court hearing via video, said he was satisfied with the conditions in the colony. “I feel better here than in IK6,” he compared to his previous prison.
In this last video he was emaciated and thin. He appears with a shaved head and wearing a baggy prison uniform.
Why was Navalni arrested?
The allegations against Navalni are widely seen as political. He was one of Putin's most vocal critics.
Navalni began as an anticorruption activist in 2007, led major protests in 2011 and 2012 and was first convicted of embezzlement in 2013. He denied the allegations.
After failing to run in the 2018 presidential election, he was hospitalized in Siberia in August 2020 after losing consciousness aboard a plane en route to Moscow. He was hospitalized with signs of toxic poisoning and was in a coma for more than two weeks. From Omsk he was transferred to the Charité Clinic in Berlin, where poisoning by a toxic substance was confirmed.
Five months after the poisoning, Navalni announced that he felt “almost healthy” and would return to Russia. On January 17, 2021, the politician landed in Moscow. This was the last time he was free: he was already detained at the airport.
He was initially sentenced to three and a half years in prison and retried in February 2022. This time it was alleged that Navalni stole US$4.7 million (R23.4 million) in donations to his political organizations.
In August 2023, his prison sentence was extended to 19 years after he was found guilty of creating and financing an extremist organization.