Navalny moved to Arctic penal colony: ally

MOSCOW: Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been moved to a penal colony in the Arctic, allies said on Monday after over two weeks during which his whereabouts were unknown.

Authorities transferred Russia´s most prominent opposition politician to an isolated penal colony three months before a presidential vote expected to easily hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term. “We have found Alexei Navalny,” his ally, Kira Yarmysh, said on social media. “He is now in IK-3 in the settlement of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District,” Yarmysh added. “His lawyer visited him today. Alexei is doing well.”

The district of Kharp, home to about 5,000 people, is located above the Arctic Circle. It is “one of the most northern and remote colonies,” said Ivan Zhdanov, who manages Navalny´s Anti-Corruption Foundation. “Conditions there are harsh, with a special regime in the permafrost zone” and very little contact to the outside world, Zhdanov said.