Putin critic dies in Russian jail

“I wish to name on the entire world group [ . . . ] to get collectively and defeat this evil, this horrific regime we have now in Russia proper now. This regime and Vladimir Putin needs to be held personally chargeable for all of the horrible issues they’ve been doing to my nation, Russia, in recent times.”

Navalny was arrested in January 2021 after returning to Moscow from Berlin, the place he had spent months recovering from a near-fatal poisoning that he mentioned was ordered by Putin.

Western leaders had been fast to recommend that Navalny’s demise was attributable to the Russian authorities, with Britain’s International Secretary David Cameron saying Putin needs to be accountable for what had occurred.

“Nobody ought to doubt the dreadful nature of his regime,” he mentioned. “Putin’s Russia fabricated fees towards him, poisoned him, despatched him to an arctic penal colony and now he has tragically died.”

Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, mentioned that if studies of the demise had been correct, they “solely underscore Russia’s weak spot and decay”.

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European Council president Charles Michel mentioned Navalny “made the last word sacrifice” and that “the EU holds the Russian regime solely chargeable for this tragic demise”, whereas German Chancellor Olaf Scholz mentioned his demise was a “horrible” signal of how Russia had modified.

Putin, who appeared on state tv on Friday morning speaking to college students and staff at a manufacturing facility within the Chelyabinsk area of the Ural mountains, has but to remark, though his spokesman mentioned he had been knowledgeable.

Maria Zakharova, the international ministry spokeswoman, lambasted the worldwide outcry.

“The speedy response of the leaders of Nato nations to the demise of Navalny within the type of accusations in direction of Russia is self-incriminating,” she mentioned.

“There are not any medical check outcomes but, and the West is already making conclusions.”

Serving a 19-year sentence on fees of extremism, he was moved in December from his former jail within the Vladimir area of central Russia to a “particular regime” penal colony – the best safety stage of prisons in Russia – above the Arctic Circle.

His allies decried the switch to a colony within the city of Kharp, within the Yamalo-Nenets area about 1900 kilometres north-east of Moscow in one more try to power Navalny into silence. The distant area is infamous for lengthy and extreme winters. Kharp is about 100 kilometres from Vorkuta, whose coal mines had been a part of the Soviet gulag prison-camp system.

Following studies of his demise Navalny’s exiled staff of supporters mentioned that they had “no affirmation of this for now”, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh wrote on social media web site X. She mentioned a lawyer for Navalny was travelling to the distant jail colony the place he was transferred final yr.

“We’ve no grounds to imagine state propaganda,” Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of employees, wrote on X. “If it’s true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died,’ however ‘Putin killed Navalny,’ nothing else. However I don’t imagine them for a second.”

Navalny’s lawyer was travelling to the jail, Volkov added.

Leonid Sobolev, a member of Navalny’s authorized staff, informed impartial newspaper Novaya Gazeta that the activist final noticed a lawyer on Wednesday. “Every part was advantageous then,” Sobolev mentioned.

Navalny had continued to change common messages with supporters by way of letters regardless of his sentence and he continued to frequently converse out towards Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin had tried to chop Navalny off even additional by arresting a number of of his attorneys final yr on fees of being a part of an “extremist group,” which carry a sentence of as much as six years in jail.

It additionally repeatedly punished him by holding him in solitary confinement on 27 separate events, most not too long ago from Wednesday.

Navalny this week had posted on social media a message to his spouse, Yulia: “Child, I do know that all the pieces with you is like within the tune – there are cities between us, airport touchdown lights, blue snowstorms and 1000’s of kilometres. However I really feel you by my facet each second and I really like you all of the extra.”

Navalny’s recognition elevated after the main charismatic politician, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed in 2015 on a bridge close to the Kremlin.

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At any time when Putin spoke about Navalny, he made it some extent to by no means point out the activist by title, referring to him as “that individual” or related wording, in an obvious effort to decrease his significance.

Invoice Browder, an American-born British financier and Putin critic, mentioned it was seemingly the Kremlin would try to cowl up the circumstances of Navalny’s demise.

“Navalny was advantageous yesterday,” Browder, who led the Magnitsky international sanctions marketing campaign towards Russian official informed The Occasions. “We must always anticipate a full Magnitsky-style cover-up from the Russian authorities briefly order.

“I can virtually predict the language they are going to use – ‘pure causes’, ‘no signal of violence’, ‘sudden demise’ and so forth.”