Allies say Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny removed from prison

A spokesperson for Alexey Navalny has said that the Russian opposition leader has been removed from the prison where he was being held and that his whereabouts are unknown.

In a social media post on December 11, spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said that it has been nearly a week since she heard from Navalny and that officials will not say where he was transferred, Al Jazeera reports. The United States has also spoken out about the incident.

“We’re deeply concerned by these reports that he’s now been gone for allegedly a week and neither his representatives or his family know where he is,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

“We’re going to work with our embassy in Moscow to see how much more we can find out,” he added.

Today, as on Friday, the lawyers tried to get to IK-6 and IK-7 — two colonies in the Vladimir region where Alexey @navalny might be. They have just been informed simultaneously in both colonies that he is not there.

We still don't know where Alexey is.

— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) December 11, 2023

The Russian opposition leader had been preparing for an expected transfer to a “special regime” high-security facility from Penal Colony Number 6, in the town of Melekhovo in the Vladimir region, about 230 kilometres (140 miles) east of Moscow.

A Russian court handed the 43-year-old Navalny a 19-year prison sentence in August on charges of “extremism”, which he maintains are politically motivated. That is on top of an 11-and-a-half-year sentence that he was already serving.

In December, he also said that he had been informed of new charges against him under a penal code that covers vandalism.

“They really do initiate a new criminal case against me every three months,” he said in comments issued through his associates at the time. “Rarely does an inmate confined to a solitary cell for over a year have such a vibrant social and political existence.”

The spokesperson Yarmysh told the news outlet Reuters that Navalny’s current location is not known.

“We don’t know where he is right now. He can be in any colony of special regime and there are around 30 of them in Russia, all over Russia,” she said. “We will try to go to every colony there is and look for him”.

The disappearance comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares for an election campaign, hoping to secure another six-year term at the country’s helm.

The team for Navalny, by far the best-known figure in Russia’s opposition, is preparing an “anti-Putin” campaign and says that the leader’s disappearance will not halt their efforts.