Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalni assured today on social networks that he is fine, in his first words from his new prison in the Arctic Circle, where he reappeared the following Monday missing for almost three weeks.
“Do not worry about me. I’m doing well. I am very happy to have achieved my goal“says Navalni in a letter published on his Telegram channel.
Navalny announced that he arrived at the IK-3 prison in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug on Saturday after a 20-day journey from Moscow to the city of Yarp with stops in several cities, including the Urals capital Yekaterinburg and Vorkuta , home to one of the most feared Soviet GULAGs.
He admitted that the transfer, known in Russia as an “etapirovanie” is “very exhausting”but added that his mood was “definitely excellent.”
“I didn’t expect anyone to find me until mid-January. That’s why I was so surprised when the door opened in the afternoon with the words: “Your lawyer has come”. He said that you had lost sight of me and that some of you were even worried about me. Thank you for the support!” he explained.
Navalny He emphasized that the prison is located within the Arctic Circle and that when he looks out the window of his cell, “first it is night, then comes afternoon, and night again.”
The opponent’s lawyers, who had located their client the day before, They had not contacted the opponent since December 5th last yearwhich alarmed his co-religionists and the Western chanceries.
The city of Jarp, which has about 6,000 residentsis almost 2,000 kilometers from Moscow or around 45 hours by train from the Russian capital.
Jarp is less than 50 kilometers from Salekhardthe administrative capital of this territory, whose area is larger than that of France, but it has only half a million inhabitants.
According to one of his employees in exile Ivan ZhdanovThe prison is named after “Polar Wolf”, which is considered and was built on one of the furthest prisons from civilization in all of Russia Base of a GULAG.
“Escape is virtually impossible. On one side hundreds of kilometers of tundra, on the other the mountains of the Arctic Urals. That’s why they lock up the most terrible criminals and serial killers there,” he commented. Ivan Vostrikova collaborator of the opposition in the Siberian region of Tyumen, on social networks.
One of the main directors of the expropriated oil company Yukos, Plato LebedevHe served part of his sentence in said prison, which is located in an area with permafrost.
Ten days ago, the Russian Penitentiary Service (FSIN) admitted this Navalny was transferred from the prison in the Vladimir region where he was serving his sentence “according to the verdict of the Moscow City Court of August 4,” which imposed a new prison sentence of 19 years for extremism.
Navalni, who has served nearly 30 years in prison for various crimes, was transferred after announcing a campaign against the president’s re-election in 2024 Wladimir Putinin power since 2000.