Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's supporters said that the individual was missing from prison as he was serving his sentence after being removed from the penal colony.
His current whereabouts remain unknown and his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said that Navalny was no longer registered at the Melekhovo colony. The White House commented on the situation and said that it was "deeply concerned" by the reports.
Alexei Navalny Reported Missing
Navalny's aides were expecting the jailed Russian opposition leader to be moved to a stricter regime jail after the extension of his prison sentence. They added that his disappearance is linked to recent announcements about elections.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday declared his intention to stand for re-election next March. Navalny was found guilty in August of founding and funding an extremist organization, which he denies, and was sentenced to 19 years of additional prison time.
Before that sentencing, he was given nine years of imprisonment for parole violations, fraud, and contempt of court. According to BBC, the charges against Navalny are widely viewed as politically motivated.
Navalny was previously told that he would have to continue his incarceration in a "special regime colony." This type of prison is typically reserved for dangerous criminals, repeat offenders, and individuals subject to life imprisonment.
On Monday, the jailed Russian opposition leader's associates said that they had no information or news of him for the past six days. Navalny had been absent from several recent court appearances, which he has attended via video link. Prison authorities blamed these on technical problems at the colony.
Navalny's aide, Leonid Volkov, said the situation was not coincidental and is 100% direct manual political control from the Kremlin. He added that it was not a secret who the Russian president viewed as his main opponent in the elections.
A spokesman for the National Security Council of the United States, John Kirby, said that Navalny should never have been imprisoned in the first place. According to the Washington Post, he added that they will work with their embassy in Moscow to see how much they can find out about the situation.
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Russian Opposition Leader's Whereabouts
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Yarmysh said that the Russian opposition leader had recently been in poor health, raising concerns about his whereabouts. She added that the fact that they could not find Navalny was alarming because he was ill in his cell last week when he became dizzy and lay down on the floor.
Navalny had been considered one of the serious threats to Putin's legitimacy during the latter's presidency, which has already spanned more than two decades. The former organized anti-government street protests and used his blog and social media to expose alleged corruption in the Kremlin as well as Russian businesses.
In 2020, the opposition leader was taken from Russia to Germany after he was poisoned with Novichok, which is a Soviet-era nerve agent. He was airlifted from the Siberian city of Omsk and arrived at a hospital in Berlin while in a coma, said CNN.
