STORY: Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been located at a remote penal colony above the Arctic Cicle, weeks after being reported missing within Russia’s prison system.
Navalny’s spokesperson on Monday said he’d been tracked to a prison dubbed “the Polar Wolf,” some 1,900 miles northeast of Moscow.
Spokesperson Kira Yarmysh told Reuters that Navalny’s lawyer managed to see him on Monday, the first time since supporters raised the alarm about his fate on December 6.
“The lawyer saw him today, so he is well, especially given the fact that he was transferred for three weeks, to this place, so this is the information I have right now.”
Navalny is among the highest-profile political figures opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has endured exile, assassination attempts, and now prison.
Navalny earned admiration when he voluntarily returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated for what Western laboratory tests showed was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent.
The Kremlin denied trying to kill him and said there was no evidence he was poisoned.
His supporters cast him as a future leader of Russia who will one day walk free from jail to lead his country, though it is unclear how much popular support he has inside Russia.
For now, he’s being held in what is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. The Polar Wolf was founded in the 1960s as part of what was once the GULAG system of forced Soviet labor camps.
Temperatures are expected to drop to negative 18 degrees Fahrenheit (-28C) over the next week.
“We know for sure that in this new colony his conditions will be even worse than they were before. But the thing is that this colony is very distant, it is very difficult to access it and for lawyers, it will be very difficult to go there and to see Alexei.”
Navalny’s lawyer suggested that Russian authorities wanted to isolate Navalny ahead of the March presidential election.
Navalny says he has been imprisoned because he is viewed as a threat by the Russian political elite. As a prisoner he is unable to run in the election.
He denies all charges he has been convicted of and casts Russia’s judicial system as deeply corrupt.