Russian Opposition Chief Navalny Present in an Arctic Jail

The Russian opposition chief Aleksei A. Navalny has been moved to a distant Arctic jail and “is doing well,” his spokeswoman stated on Monday, ending a 20-day thriller over his whereabouts that had many supporters fearing the worst.

“We have found Aleksei,” the spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on social media. “His lawyer saw him today.”

Ms. Yarmysh’s announcement marked the tip of a frantic search by means of Russia’s huge jail system for Mr. Navalny, who disappeared on Dec. 5. Mr. Navalny’s exiled allies stated that that they had discovered him within the distant penal colony within the Arctic after sending greater than 600 requests to prisons and different authorities companies.

Ivan Zhdanov, director of Mr. Navalny’s anticorruption basis, stated that Mr. Navalny’s attorneys had regarded by means of each pretrial detention middle.

“From the beginning, it was clear that the government wanted to isolate Aleksei, especially ahead of the election,” Mr. Zhdanov stated, referring to the approaching presidential race in Russia that President Vladimir V. Putin is widely expected to win.

There was no fast response from the Kremlin to Mr. Navalny’s switch. All through his absence from the general public eye, the Russian authorities had been dismissive about his whereabouts. Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, stated on Dec. 14 that the Kremlin had “neither the possibility, nor rights or desire to trace the fate of convicts,” referring to Mr. Navalny.

Over the past decade, Mr. Navalny has been the one Russian opposition politician who posed a critical problem to Mr. Putin’s monopoly over the nation’s political panorama. He constructed a sturdy political group with workplaces throughout the nation and drew 1000’s to his anti-Kremlin rallies. Over the previous few years, the Russian authorities went to nice lengths to dismantle the infrastructure he had created. A lot of his allies needed to flee Russia or had been arrested.

Mr. Navalny’s new penal colony, formally often known as IK-3 Polar Wolf, is within the settlement of Kharp and is among the many harshest and remotest prisons in Russia. Inmates endure lengthy, darkish, chilly winters in addition to clouds of mosquitoes in the summertime. The penal colony is a successor to a Gulag labor camp, established there for jail staff constructing a railway throughout the Russian Arctic, ordered by Stalin, however by no means completed in full.

Mr. Navalny’s earlier jail, within the city of Melekhovo, was solely about 160 miles east of Moscow, which means that his attorneys may drive there in a fashion of hours. In distinction, the brand new jail is a few 1,200 miles from the capital. A prepare to Kharp, known as the Polar Arrow, departs Moscow each second day and takes 44 hours to succeed in the city.

“Aleksei’s situation is a clear example of how the system treats political prisoners, trying to isolate and suppress them,” Mr. Zhdanov said on social media.

Ivan Vostrikov, former head of Mr. Navalny’s workplace within the city of Tyumen, in Siberia, stated he had been to Kharp a number of occasions. He described the city as “a very beautiful place with a very tough winter.”

“It is practically impossible to run away from it — on the one side there is tundra,” he stated in a post on Telegram, a social messaging app. “On the other, there are rocky mountains of Polar Urals,” he added. “That’s why they put the worst criminals and serial killers there.”

Mr. Navalny’s allies had been anticipating his switch to certainly one of Russia’s stricter prisons — often known as “special regime” jail colonies — since September, when he misplaced an enchantment in opposition to the 19-year sentence he’s serving.

Detainees being transferred to distant prisons in Russia can spend weeks being shuttled between trains in particular rail automobiles and have little or no entry to the surface world. However Mr. Navalny’s disappearance made headlines nearly instantly due to his high-profile standing within the Russian political system.

Mr. Navalny has been in custody in Russia since his detention in January 2021 at a Moscow airport, the place he had arrived after spending months in Germany recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent. Mr. Navalny and Western governments accused the Kremlin of the poisoning, which Russian officers denied.

Since then, the Russian authorities have introduced forth a mess of latest fees in opposition to Mr. Navalny. According to Ms. Yarmysh, he’s at present a defendant in 14 legal instances and faces potential sentences of as much as 35 years in jail.