What is known about the death of Alexei Navalny, the Russian politician who opposed Putin

The official version says that this Friday Alexey Navalny He took a brief walk around the Siberian penal colony where he was imprisoned, said he felt unwell, then passed out and never regained consciousness.

Russia’s biggest opponent Vladimir Putin He was 47 years old. His condition deteriorated during the three years he spent in prison, where he complained of being denied medical treatment and spending almost 300 days in solitary confinement.

LOOK: What were the harsh conditions in which Navalny lived in the infamous Russian “Polar Wolf” prison, where he finally died

At the time of his arrest in January 2021, he had spent months recovering from a nerve agent attack.

Still, he appeared to be in relatively good spirits and health in a courtroom video filmed the day before his death.

International opinion does not seem to agree with Russia’s account of what happened to it in IK-3any “Polar Wolf”one of the northernmost and harshest prisons in Russia.

In December, he was transferred to this notorious Arctic prison, thousands of kilometers northeast of Moscow.

French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné said Navalny “he paid with his life” for his “resistance to Russian oppression”adding that his death was a reminder of “the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime”.

The French president, Emmanuel Macronsaid that in Russia “free spirits are sent to the Gulag and sentenced to death”while its American counterpart, Joe BidenI say that “Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death”.

Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, said in a Facebook post cited by the newspaper Novaia Gazeta that her son was “alive, healthy and happy” when she last saw him on February 12.

“We really can’t believe Putin and his government,” said Yulia, his wife.

What the Russian media say about its collapse

Navalny with his wife, before flying back to Russia after recovering from Novichok poisoning. (GET IMAGES).

Russian news agency Interfax reported that doctors passed half an hour trying to revive him.

According to prison authorities, doctors attended to him within two minutes and an ambulance was available within six minutes.

State broadcaster RT, banned in many Western countries, raised the possibility that a blood clot killed him.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said that “doctors must sort this out somehow.”

Any suggestion that the Kremlin is responsible for Alexei Navalny’s death is “completely unacceptable”Peskov said, as reported by Russian news agency Tass.

The spokesman said the reaction of Western leaders to Navalny’s death was “hysterical.”

Peskov also said on Friday that the Russian prison service was carrying out “all checks” into Navalny’s death but had no further information on the matter.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram that the results of the Forensic analysis the cause of Navalny’s death was not yet available.

Russian Parliament Speaker Viacheslav Volodin blamed the West for the Kremlin critic’s death.

“All of them, their names are well known, from the Secretary General of NATO and American leaders to (Olaf) Scholz, (Rishi) Sunak and (Volodymyr) Zelensky are to blame for Navalny’s death,” the politician said on his channel Telegram. .

At least as of 10pm local time (5pm GMT), no autopsy had been performed.

Previous attacks against Navalny

Protesters calling for Navalny’s release at a protest in Moscow in 2021. (GETTY IMAGES).

Whether it was a slow deterioration, a sudden catastrophe or a single incident that killed him, Navalny was aware that they wanted him dead.

In December 2020, he accused Federal Security Service (FSB) agents of poisoning him.

He fell seriously ill and collapsed on a plane flying from Tomsk, Siberia, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing in Omsk while the crew sought medical help.

European laboratories would later confirm that it was found on his body. Novichokthe Russian-made nerve agent that was also used to toxic for Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, UK.

In an extraordinary phone call, which Navalny recorded, he tricked an FSB agent into admitting that the chemical weapon had been placed in his underwear in a Tomsk hotel.

Agent Konstantin Kudryavtsev said that if the plane had not made an emergency landing, he would have died.

After treatment in Germany, Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021 and was immediately arrested.

Deterioration in prison

The last images we have of Navalny are from court videos of his arrest. GET IMAGES).

His health deteriorated in prison.

In the months following Navalny’s arrest on charges of “extremism” and “corruption,” his allies and lawyers have issued numerous warnings that his health condition was getting worsethat he was seriously ill or that his whereabouts were unknown.

He complained of severe back pain, fever and numbness in his legs.

He spoke of a lack of sleep due to hourly “checks” by guards who shined torches in his eyes and has yet to overcome the serious effects of the Novichok attack.

In his last public appearance in prison, on January 10, Navalny joked that he had not yet received any Christmas mail because he was “too far away”.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, on Friday described Navalny’s death as a “terrible tragedy” and the latest example of the Russian government’s “long and sordid history of harming its opponents.”

“It raises real and obvious questions about what happened here,” he continued.

His death, whatever the cause, occurred while he was imprisoned in the care of the State.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was “shocked” by the death and added that it should be investigated by an independent body.

“If someone dies in State custody,” the UN statement adds, “the presumption is that the State is responsible.”

This “responsibility can only be refuted through an impartial, complete and transparent investigation carried out by an independent body”, the body stated.

Navalny’s death deprives Putin’s opponents of an internationally recognized alternative and constitutes perhaps the biggest warning to those who try to deceive the Kremlin.

Source: Elcomercio