Alexei Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died yesterday in the arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.
The stunning news of Navalny’s death — less than a month before an election that would give Putin another six years in power — brought renewed criticism and outrage directed at the Kremlin leader who has cracked down on all opposition at home.
Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness, the Federal Penitentiary Service said. An ambulance arrived, but paramedics failed to revive him. The service said the cause of death was “being established.”
Photo: Reuters
Navalny had been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Since then, he received three prison sentences, all of which he rejected as politically motivated.
Praise for Navalny’s bravery poured in from Western leaders and others who have opposed Putin’s rule. The opposition leader’s health has deteriorated recently and the cause of death remains unknown, but many world leaders said they held Russian authorities ultimately responsible for his death.
“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. Russia is responsible for this,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said while at a conference in Germany.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Navalny “has probably now paid for this courage with his life.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin was informed of Navalny’s death.
The opposition leader’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, wrote on X that the team had no confirmation yet.
Shortly after the death was reported, the Russian SOTA social media channel shared images of the opposition politician reportedly in court yesterday. In the footage, Navalny is seen standing up and is laughing and joking with the judge via video link.
Navalny was moved in December from a prison in central Russia to a “special regime” penal colony — the highest security level of prisons in the country — above the Artic Circle.
His allies decried the transfer to a colony in the town of Kharp, in a region about 1,900km northeast of Moscow, as yet another attempt to force Navalny into silence.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS