Navalni is located in a prison in the Arctic Circle after three weeks in unknown whereabouts

The imprisoned Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalnyhas been located in a prison near the Ural mountain rangein the Arctic Circle, after almost three weeks in an unknown whereabouts, as reported today on the social network X by its team of collaborators.

“We have found Alexei Navalny! He is in the IK-3 penitentiary in the town of Jarp, in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district. The lawyer saw him today. Alexei is fine,” wrote Kira Yarmish, the opposition’s spokesperson.

The opposition’s lawyers had not contacted their client since last December 5, which alerted his coreligionists and the Western chancelleries.

The town of Jarp, which has about 6,000 inhabitants, is located almost 2,000 kilometers from Moscow or about 45 hours by train from the Russian capital.

According to one of his collaborators in exile, Iván Zhdanov, the prison is called “Polar Wolf” and is considered one of the furthest prisons from civilization from all over Russia.

Ten days ago, the Russian penitentiary services (FSIN) admitted that Navalny had been transferred from the prison where he was serving his sentence in the Vladimir region, but did not specify his new destination.

So much USA as the European Union (EU) or Amnesty International (AI) had expressed their concern about the fate of Navalny, the Kremlin’s number one enemy. The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, was “deeply” concerned on Saturday about the opacity regarding Navalni’s whereabouts and demanded “once again” his “immediate release” and for the Kremlin to stop “repressing the voices independents in Russia”.

On December 7, Navalny asked from prison to vote against Putin in the March 17, 2024 elections.