Alexei Navalny, Putin’s main opponent, has died, according to Russian prison authorities

Russian authorities confirm the death of the main opposition figure to Vladimir Putin.

Russian prison authorities confirmed the death of Alexei Navalny, the main figure of the Russian opposition, imprisoned in the country since he decided to return to Russia in 2021, from Germany, where he was being treated for a poisoning he had suffered. . He was 47 years old.

According to a statement from the Federal Prison Service, Navalny felt unwell after a walk this Friday and lost consciousness. An ambulance was called, but they were unable to revive him and he ended up dying.

Before and after the 2020 poisoning, he was the main instigator of several demonstrations against Vladimir Putin’s regime, having been a candidate for president of the Moscow City Council in 2013 and coming in second place, and was then seen as the main opponent of the Russian president. In 2018, he was prevented from running in the presidential elections. He was the author of several documentaries about corruption in Russia and led the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Future Russia party. He was detained by authorities several times.

After returning to Russia in 2021, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for “extremism” and, that same year, was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament. Recently, he was transferred from the prison where he was held in the Vladimir region to a penal colony in a remote region of the Arctic.

The Russian Investigative Committee has already opened an investigation into Navalny’s death. The opponent’s team says it has not yet received official confirmation and has sent Navalny’s lawyer to the region where he allegedly died.

International reactions to Navalny’s death begin to emerge. The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, says that the EU holds the Kremlin responsible for the opponent’s death, saying that “fighters die, but the fight for freedom never dies”.