More than 100 people were arrested in eight Russian cities during demonstrations in memory of the dissident who died in the Arctic penal colony. If the Kremlin does not issue a statement and makes it clear that it considers the reactions of Western leaders to be “unacceptable,” Navalny's collaborators and his family will have no doubts about the responsibility of Vladimir Putin's government for the death
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Alexei Navalny's death appears to have gone unnoticed in the Kremlin. But as some sources say, the dissident's disappearance risks becoming a problem for Putin, who is looking for an apparent endorsement in March elections. In fact, scores of people laid flowers upon hearing the news of Navalny's death in the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Russian Arctic, and prosecutors immediately warned everyone that demonstrations would violate the law. Over 100 people were arrested in eight Russian cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Tver, Taganrog, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don and Murmansk. The highest echelons of the Russian government have not commented on the news of Navalny's death, but have denounced the “unacceptable” reactions of Western leaders to the dissident's death.
The colony
“Arctic Wolf”: This is the name of penal colony No. 3 in the Russian Arctic, where Alexei Navalny was transferred last December. The detention center, one of the strictest in the Federation's prison system, is located in Charp in the Yamalo-Nenetsk Autonomous Region, almost 2,000 km from Moscow, which is known for its long and harsh winters. The city is near Vorkuta, whose coal mines were among the harshest in the Soviet gulag system. The opponent was constantly kept in the punishment cell for the most trivial reasons: As Meduza reported, on February 14, just three days after his release, he was again sent to solitary confinement for 15 days. According to Navalny, the daily routine in the punishment cell was different: he could not take the walk outside in the afternoon, when the temperatures are a little milder, but had to do it early in the morning, when it is very cold. “Few things are as invigorating as a walk in Yamal at 6:30 in the morning. And what a nice fresh breeze blows in the yard, despite the concrete fence, just wow!” he wrote ironically. The narrow courtyard in which he has to walk is 11 steps long and 3 steps wide: “There is not much to walk, but at least it is something, so I go for a walk,” he stressed on January 9 last year. post a photo.
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Alexei Navalny, the Russian political opponent. PHOTO HISTORY
The doubts of the collaborators
When the Kremlin suggests that Navalny's death could pose a problem for President Putin with presidential elections a month away, Navalny's associates and family have no doubts. Some assume he was murdered, while most believe Navalny definitely died from everything that was done to him, from being poisoned with Novichok, a nerve substance, to the numerous prison stints he has endured since January suffered in 2021. In total, he spent 300 days in solitary confinement, for reasons his aides often described as flimsy.
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On March 28, 2022 it became known that the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and the Ukrainian negotiators were reportedly suffering from symptoms of suspected poisoning after a meeting in Kiev earlier this month. The news was confirmed by the oligarch's spokesman and there is talk of red eyes and peeling skin, even if the presidential advisor and Ukrainian chief negotiator Mikhailo Podolyak denies this the allegations of poisoning of Ukrainian negotiators by Russia
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The alleged poisoning of Abramovich (here with Putin) and the Ukrainian negotiators brings back memories similar stories from Russian opponents or people whom Moscow considers inconvenientfrom Alexei Navalny to Alexander Litvinenko to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko
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YUSHCHENKO – In 2004, Ukrainian presidential candidate and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was hospitalized in Austria after falling victim to mysterious dioxin poisoning, a substance that was likely put in his soup. Saved from death but with a disfigured face, Yushchenko ran in the presidential election on November 23, 2004 against the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych
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