The Russian president’s best-known political opponent is serving a nine-year sentence in a forced labor camp
Two years after his return and arrest in Moscow o Alexei Navalny, the best-known political opponent of Russian President Putin, is serving a nine-year sentence in a forced labor camp. After an attempt to assassinate him with the chemical substance Novichok, the 46-year-old Russian deputy decided, after hospitalization in Germany, to return to his homeland as soon as possible. Today he speaks of torture, accusing the Kremlin of a “fascist detention system”.
Despite his deteriorating health, Navalny appears unyielding to the Kremlin, telling Russian anti-establishment officials abroad that he is not giving up his fight. For some time, his family and supporters feared for his life, as he was facing health problems such as cough, chills and fever in isolation.
As the lawyer of Vadim Kobshev complained, for some time his client was not undergoing treatment. In the meantime, however, he is given an antibiotic, while at the same time he was visited by the head of the clinic, who had also examined him during the hunger strike a few years ago. According to Vadim Kobshev, he meets his client periodically at forced labor camp 6 in Melekhovo near the city of Novrov, 260 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
Alexei Navalny’s access to medical care is largely due to an open letter from more than 600 doctors asking President Putin to end the prisoner’s solitary confinement and “mistreatment”. Among the signatories was the Muscovite surgeon Alexander Vanyokov, who together with the other doctors asked the Russian president, as the guarantor of the Russian constitution, to ensure Navalny’s access to medical care and to immediately end his detention in solitary confinement.
105 days in solitary confinement
Two years ago today, Alexei Navalny was returning and was arrested at the Moscow airport. About five months earlier, in August 2020, he narrowly escaped Haru’s teeth. He was determined to return home, however, and did so by announcing that he would confront President Putin in Russia and not from afar as a critical voice from abroad. Despite the threatened penalties, he consistently takes part in the ongoing trials to publicly oppose and denounce the Russian president’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Videos from inside the forced labor camp show a visibly emaciated Alexei Navalny. To date, the prisoner has been sentenced to solitary confinement ten times for a total of 105 days, says his representative Kira Jarmis, describing the detention system as inhumane. At the same time, he criticizes the fact that particularly severe punishments are constantly imposed on the Russian revolutionary because he disagrees with the guards or appeals to Russian justice to defend his rights.
“We will continue until we defeat Putin”
In the meantime, Russian anti-establishment activists, who consider Navalny a prominent figure in the fight against Vladimir Putin, are mainly trying from abroad to organize resistance against the Russian president in the country itself. At the same time, they expose cases of corruption of high-ranking Russian officials or inform the public about offspring of government officials, who organize lavish parties abroad. Millions of users around the world follow Alexei Navalny’s associates on social media to take a stand on what is happening in Russia or organize political discussions on YouTube.
The head of the Anti-Corruption Foundation Leonid Volkov, who runs the foundation founded by Navalny from exile in Lithuania, believes that the countdown to President Putin has already begun and that Russia’s future lies in Europe. His priority for now is to include as many Russian officials supporting the war in Ukraine on sanctions lists as possible. Recently, Alexei Navalny stated that corruption strengthened the elites around President Putin in the face of the war in Ukraine: “We have been fighting Putin since 2011. We will continue our fight against him until we win.”
Read the News today and get the latest news.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
