Putin clearly wants Navalny to be as isolated from the upcoming presidential-election proceedings as possible.
Around two weeks ago, Alexei Navalny, perhaps the most important figure in what remains of Russia’s democratic opposition, “disappeared” within Russia’s penal system. That could have meant various things, few of them good. His health is known to have deteriorated since his arrest and incarceration under increasingly harsh regimes. Had things suddenly taken a much worse turn? And that was not the only grim possibility. Had Navalny been murdered or seriously harmed by another inmate, perhaps with the Kremlin’s encouragement, to produce the kind of (not really) plausibly deniable result Putin would like? On the other hand, people do sometimes “disappear” for a while when being transferred within the Russian prison network. It’s a part of the routine cruelty with which the system is operated.
This appears to have been the case here.
Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has been tracked down to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle, his spokeswoman said on Monday, after supporters lost touch with him for more than two weeks.
Navalny, 47, was tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region, about 1,900 km (1200 miles) north east of Moscow, spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said. Navalny’s lawyer managed to see him on Monday, Yarmysh said.
“This prison will be much worse than the one that was before,” Yarmysh told Reuters TV in Vilnius via video call. “They are trying to make his life as unbearable as it possibly can be.”
“They definitely try to isolate Alexei and to make it more difficult to access him,” said Yarmysh, who refused to disclose her location due to security concerns.
Navalny’s allies, who had been preparing for his expected transfer to a “special regime” colony, the harshest grade in Russia’s prison system, said he had not been seen by his lawyers since Dec. 6 and raised the alarm about his fate.
Navalny’s new home, known as “the Polar Wolf” colony, is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Most prisoners there have been convicted of grave crimes. Winters are harsh — and temperatures are due to drop to around minus 28 Celsius (minus 18.4 Fahrenheit) there over the next week.
About 60 km (40 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, the prison was founded in the 1960s as part of what was once the GULAG system of forced Soviet labour camps, according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. . . .
Russia’s presidential election will be held on March 15-17. While there is no realistic possibility that Putin will lose, he clearly wants Navalny to be as isolated from the proceedings as possible.
Meanwhile (via AP):
A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine hit a roadblock in her campaign Saturday, when Russia’s Central Election Commission refused to accept her initial nomination by a group of supporters, citing errors in the documents submitted.
Ah yes, “errors.”
Also (via the Moscow Times):
Hundreds of supporters of Igor Girkin, a jailed former commander of Russian-backed fighters in Ukraine, rallied in Moscow Sunday to back his bid to stand for president.
Better known by his alias Igor Strelkov, Girkin was a key leader of separatist fighters in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The nationalist has strongly criticized Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine for being “too kind.”
He was detained in July on an extremism charge following a series of posts critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to easily win re-election.
In August, despite still being in prison, Girkin announced on social media that he wanted to run for president in the March elections.
Girkin’s supporters seem to accept that “errors” will be found in his paperwork, too. That will not be much of a loss, but it’s always worth remembering that there are factions in Russia (some, to be sure, will be front operations) that want the regime to take an even more hard line whether in Ukraine or beyond. The real question, however, is how much strength they have within the Kremlin.