- Navalny “felt unwell” after a walk on Friday, prison authorities say.
- The Kremlin says there are no details about the cause of Alexei Navalny's death.
- In December, Navalny disappeared from a prison in the Vladimir region.
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died, according to the prison service.
According to a statement from the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District on its website, Navalny “felt unwell” after a walk on Friday and “almost immediately lost consciousness.”
Medical personnel were called, but were unable to revive Navalny, he added. He said the motive for death was being established.
The Kremlin said it lacks details about the cause of Alexei Navalny's death. In early December, Navalny disappeared from a prison in the Vladimir region, where he was serving a 30-year sentence on extremism and fraud charges, seeing them as political retaliation for leading the anti-Kremlin opposition in the 2010s.
Without anticipating a release during Putin's lifetime, Navalny, a former nationalist politician, played a pivotal role in the 2011-2012 Russian protests, exposing election fraud and government corruption, and scrutinizing Putin's inner circle through widely video footage. seen.
His political zenith in 2013 saw him run for mayor of Moscow, challenging alleged injustice. Navalny, who remained an irritant to the Kremlin, discovered a Black Sea palace for Putin, properties linked to former President Medvedev and connections between a top foreign policy official and a notable oligarch.
Surviving a novichok poisoning in 2020, Navalny faced multiple prison sentences upon his return to Russia in 2021, coinciding with Putin's bid for a fifth term. Putin's possible continuation beyond 2030 looms as he revises his term limits in 2020.
