Key Points
- The 47-year-old was Russia’s most prominent opposition leader.
- Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened an investigation into the death.
- Western governments and Russian opposition figures on Friday said the Kremlin was responsible for his death.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died on Friday after collapsing and losing consciousness at the penal colony north of the Arctic Circle where , the Russian prison service said.
Navalny, by far Russia’s most famous opposition leader, rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning the elite class around President Vladimir Putin and voicing allegations of corruption on a vast scale. He was 47.
How did Alexei Navalny die?
The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny “felt unwell” after a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 km north east of Moscow.
Navalny, the prison service said, had lost consciousness almost immediately.
Late last year, Navalny was moved to a remote Arctic prison colony in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets region in northern Siberia. Source: AP / AP
“The medical staff of the institution arrived immediately, and an ambulance team was called,” the prison service said.
“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results. Doctors of the ambulance stated the death of the convict.”
“The causes of death are being established.”
Putin has been told about Navalny’s death, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
‘EU holds Russia responsible’
The European Union said on Friday it held President Vladimir Putin’s Russia solely responsible for the death of Navalny.
“Alexei Navalny fought for the values of freedom and democracy. For his ideals, he made the ultimate sacrifice,” European Council President Charles Michel posted on X.
“The EU holds the Russian regime for sole responsible for this tragic death.”
Russian newspaper editor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov told Reuters on Friday the death of Navalny was “murder”, and said that he believed harsh treatment had led to his demise.
“My sincere belief is that it was the conditions of detention that led to Navalny’s death … His sentence was supplemented by murder,” Muratov said, offering condolences to his family.
Navalny earned admiration from Russia’s disparate opposition for voluntarily returning to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been .
Navalny said at the time that he was poisoned in Siberia in August 2020. The Kremlin denied trying to kill him and said there was no evidence he was poisoned with a nerve agent.
