A vocal critic of Vladimir Putin Alexei Navalny, 47, has died in prison, Russian officials have confirmed on Friday, although there the Kremlin claims to have no information over his death.
Many across Russia including Russian officials believed that Navalny was a threat to Putin and his leadership.
He was a political activist and conducted detailed investigations in high corruption, Navalny was also running for Mayor in Moscow which is what made him famous.
A statement from Russian officials states, “On February 16, 2024, in correctional colony No 3, convict A A Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness.
“The institution’s medical workers immediately arrived and an emergency medical team was called.
“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but they did not yield positive results.”
They added, “Emergency medical doctors confirmed the death of the convict.”
Navalny’s chief of staff, Leonid Volkov said that the statement from the prison service could be a “confession that they killed” him in prison.
Volkov said “we do not have any way to confirm it or to prove this isn’t’ true,” he added that Navalny’s lawyer is on the way to the Harp.
Sky News correspondent Diana Magnay said this is an “absolute tragedy” and a “stain on the conscience of the Russian state.”
She said that over his time in solitary confinement he had been “deteriorating slowly,” Magnay added, “does seem very shocking that his health should have deteriorated to the extent that he’s dead.”
“He’s a 47-year-old man and, yes, he’s been put through a lot in the prison systems but we haven’t had an indication that he would die this suddenly,” Magnay said.
“I just wonder whether something specific happened to him rather than some kind of gradual deterioration.”
She added, “It is an absolute tragedy for any notion of a free Russia, a Russian democracy, a Russian future – which was all that Alexei Navalny really devoted his life to.”
“He has been a moral voice for Russia from his prison cell and against the lack of freedoms he felt for his fellow countrymen.”
In August 2020 Navalny was poisoned with a “Novichock nerve agent” in his hotel room and not at the airport.
Investigators found Novichock on Navalny’s water bottle, but not inside prior to him collapsing in agony on a flight in Siberia in August.
A post on his Instagram account says, “Now we understand: It was done before he left his room to reach the airport.”
On a flight back from Moscow to Siberia Navalny fell ill on 20 August, and was later transferred to a hospital in Berlin, Germany.
German authorities confirmed that Navalny was targeted with the deadly nerve agent Novichok, which was the same chemical weapon agent was used against Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK in 2018.
