Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has reportedly died in a penal colony, as announced by the Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Navalny, the most prominent foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism.
He had been imprisoned in the Vladimir region of central Russia, about 230 kilometres (140 miles) east of Moscow.
The 45-year-old anti-corruption activist fell critically ill in 2020 after being poisoned with a nerve agent, an incident he and many Western leaders blamed on the Russian government.
The Kremlin has consistently denied any involvement.
According to an announcement posted on its website, the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District reported that Alexei Navalny experienced discomfort following a walk on Friday and swiftly fell unconscious.
Despite the prompt arrival of medical personnel, their resuscitation efforts proved unsuccessful.
The statement mentioned that the cause of Navalny’s death is currently under investigation.
The region is notorious for long and severe winters; the town is near Vorkuta, whose coal mines were among the harshest of the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system.
“It is almost impossible to get to this colony; it is almost impossible to even send letters there. This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world,” Navalny’s chief strategist, Leonid Volkov, said on X in December.
Transfers within Russia’s prison system are shrouded in secrecy and inmates can disappear from contact for several weeks. Navalny’s team was particularly alarmed when he could not be found because he had been ill and reportedly was being denied food and kept in an unventilated cell.
Supporters believed he was deliberately being hidden after Putin announced his candidacy in Russia’s March presidential election.
