World News Update Russia : Russians have been advised by prosecutors not to participate in any large-scale demonstrations.
The 47-year-old Navalny was last seen laughing and appearing well at a video link court appearance the day before he passed away.
Tearful, Yulia Navalnaya warned the audience that the news had only come from dubious state sources as she took the podium at the Munich Security conference.
“But if it’s true, I know Putin, all his allies, all his friends, all his government know they will be held responsible for what they’ve done… and this day will come sooner than you think.” According to reports, his mother Lyudmila Navalnaya stated: “I would prefer not to receive any condolences.” We met with him on February 12th, when we saw him in prison. He was well, alive, and content.”
Although there was no way to verify the events, Navalny’s close aide Leonid Volkov stated that the statement made by the prison officials amounted to a confession that they had killed him
Alexei Navalny, the most prominent opposition figure in Russia during the last ten years, passed away in an Arctic Circle prison, the prison administration announced.
The most vocal opponent of President Vladimir Putin, he was serving a 19-year sentence for charges of extremism that were mostly believed to be politically motivated.
Late last year, Navalny was transferred to one of the harshest prison colonies in Russia.
Yulia, his wife, has made an appeal to the whole community “to help punish this regime”.
Chief of the Anti-Corruption Foundation and one of his closest associates, Ivan Zhdanov, declared that it was “highly likely” that Navalny had been slain, adding that a “murder had actually happened”.
According to the prison service in Navalny’s home district of Yamalo-Nenets, Russia, he “felt unwell” following a walk on Friday. In a statement, it was stated that he had “almost immediately lost consciousness” and that an emergency medical team had been contacted right after. They attempted to revive him, but were unable.
“The prisoner was pronounced dead by the emergency physicians. The reason for the death is being determined.”
Soon after, a constant stream of Moscow residents placed flowers at a memorial to those who have suffered from political persecution in front of the Lubyanka, which used to be the headquarters of Russia’s infamous KGB spy agency.
Russia’s state TV outlets did not provide much attention, while an RT story claimed that Navalny had a blood clot.
Alexander Polupan, a Moscow specialist who had previously treated Navalny, made fun of that. He said that only a post-mortem investigation could provide that kind of diagnosis.
Shortly after the jail service revealed Navalny’s death, the world praised the bravery of Vladimir Putin’s most formidable domestic opponent.
His resistance to Russian “oppression” had cost him his life, according to France, but the foreign minister of Norway claimed that Russian authorities were mostly to blame for his demise.
If the reports are true, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated in Munich that “Russia is responsible for this” and that “his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built.”
Dmitry Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokeswoman, only stated that Navalny’s passing had been “reported to the president,” who was in the city of Chelyabinsk. Mr. Peskov stated, “Medics have to figure this out somehow.”
“After what has just happened, nobody should be in any doubt about the dreadful nature of Putin’s regime in Russia,” stated UK Foreign Minister David Cameron.
While the majority of the Russian president’s detractors have left the country, Alexei Navalny made a comeback in January 2021 following several months of medical care. At the conclusion of a trip to Siberia in August 2020, he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
After his team managed to get him a flight to Germany for specialized care, he was arrested as soon as he arrived back in Moscow. His wife Yulia Navalnaya had accompanied him on the aircraft from Germany; they had hugged at passport control and then been escorted away.
He would spend the following thirty-seven months behind bars.
There were thousands of kilometers separating them, yet he said in his most recent Instagram message to his wife two days ago, “but I feel that you are near every second.” His two children, Zakhar, who is still in school, and Dasha, who is studying in the US, are left behind.
The 47-year-old Navalny had long aspired to run against Vladimir Putin in the 2018 presidential contest, but he was disqualified. Russia’s president won’t face any significant opposition next month.
Boris Nadezhdin, the anti-war candidate, was prohibited from participating in the election due to alleged anomalies discovered in the thousands of signatures he received in favor of his candidacy.
Navalny is the most recent in a line of well-known Russians to pass away while opposing Vladimir Putin’s authority. His opposition started as an anti-corruption crusade.
A few weeks after leading his mercenaries in a violent rebellion, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a strange plane accident in August 2023. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot dead in 2015 on a Moscow bridge near the Kremlin.
Still, Navalny dismissed his pals’ worries about his health with a series of laughs. He was transferred from a prison colony east of Moscow in December, and it took weeks for anybody to see him again before he turned up in a prison colony in the town of Kharp in the Arctic.
Navalny told reporters during a video court hearing that he had been taken on a 20-day tour around Russia and that his current conditions were “much better” than those of his former Vladimir prison colony.
But he was subjected to solitary imprisonment on multiple occasions as punishment from his jails. According to his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh, he was in seclusion for more than 280 days last month.
Because of his most recent sentence for extremism last August, Navalny was not expected to be released from prison until he was in his 70s. His backers claimed that the Kremlin was attempting to permanently silence him during this, his third jail term.
He had been kept in solitary confinement at least 27 times, according to Russian human rights activist and journalist Eva Merkacheva, who said on Friday that this “could not but play a role” in his demise.
No one may be placed in isolation for longer than 15 days under the law since doctors recognized that such harsh conditions were extremely detrimental to the human body, she claimed.
We hope that news went false