Russian opposition chief Alexey Navalny on Tuesday mentioned he was ”nice” after a ”fairly exhausting” 20-day switch from his jail close to Moscow to a penal colony past the Arctic Circle.
Navalny’s supporters mentioned on Monday that the Kremlin critic, whose whereabouts had been unknown for greater than two weeks, was now within the penal colony in Russia’s far north and had been visited by his lawyer.
EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / REUTERS
”Don’t be concerned about me. I am nice. I am completely relieved that I’ve lastly made it,” Navalny wrote on X, previously referred to as Twitter. ”I am nonetheless in a great temper, as befits a Santa Claus,” referring to his winter clothes and a beard he grew throughout his journey.
”I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and shortly I’ll get valenki (a conventional Russian winter footwear),” he added.
On his private channel on the social media venue Telegram he wrote Tuesday that, ”I now stay past the Arctic Circle. Within the village of Kharp on Yamal.”
”They introduced me in on Saturday night,” he mentioned. ”They usually have been transporting with such precautions and alongside such an odd route (Vladimir – Moscow – Chelyabinsk – Yekaterinburg – Kirov – Vorkuta – Kharp) that I didn’t anticipate that anybody would discover me right here till mid-January. Due to this fact, I used to be very stunned when yesterday the cell doorways have been opened with the phrases: ’You’ve got a lawyer.’ He instructed me that you simply had misplaced me, and a few have been even apprehensive. Thanks very a lot on your assist!
He mentioned he had seen little of his environment apart from a snow-covered adjoining cell used as a yard and a fence exterior his window.
”True, there are not any deer, however there are large, fluffy, very lovely shepherd canines,” he mentioned.
The U.S. State Division mentioned it remained ”deeply involved for Mr. Navalny’s wellbeing and the situations of his unjust detention”.
Navalny mobilized large anti-government protests earlier than being jailed in 2021, after surviving an assassination try by poisoning.
He has spent most of his detention at a penal colony within the Vladimir area, some 155 miles east of Moscow.
A court docket final August prolonged his sentence to 19 years on extremism prices and dominated he be moved to a harsher particular regime jail that often homes significantly harmful prisoners.