After two weeks without word from Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, his lawyers and allies, fearing the worst, are running a frantic campaign to find him. Their efforts have included requesting information from dozens of Russian prisons and taking to social media to raise awareness of Mr. Navalny’s disappearance and to call on the Russian government to reveal his whereabouts.
Many Russians living abroad have gone to their country’s diplomatic missions to protest. Some have held up posters saying “Where is Navalny?”. Dmitri S. Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, told journalists on Friday that the Kremlin had “neither the possibility, nor rights or desire to trace the fate of convicts,” referring to Mr. Navalny.
Here is what we know about Mr. Navalny and his disappearance.
When did Mr. Navalny disappear?
The last time Mr. Navalny’s lawyers heard from him was on Dec. 5. The following day, one of his lawyers waited for seven hours outside the penal colony where Mr. Navalny was being kept but was not allowed to see him. Mr. Navalny then failed to appear by video link at a scheduled court hearing the next day, Dec. 7. In the days after Mr. Navalny’s disappearance, his allies grew more alarmed as letters sent to him went undelivered and the authorities declined to reveal his location to his lawyers. Mr. Navalny was scheduled to appear for various court hearings on Monday. One of the courts at which he was supposed to appear suspended his case because it could not locate him, Vyacheslav Gimadi, a member of Mr. Navalny’s legal team, posted on social media.
Where could he be?
As part of his last sentence, Mr. Navalny was scheduled to be transferred to one of Russia’s harsh “special regime” colonies. There are at least 25 such prisons scattered across Russia. By law, relatives should receive notification within 10 days after an inmate’s arrival at a new destination, usually by mail, and such a letter can take up to 20 days to arrive. The Russian prison system considers information about such transfers a state secret. Detainees being transferred to remote prisons in Russia can spend long weeks being shuttled between trains in special prison rail cars and have little or no access to the outside world.
Last week, Baza reported that Mr. Navalny had been transferred to a detention center in Moscow to await trial on another criminal charge, but the report has not been verified.
Why was Mr. Navalny imprisoned?
Mr. Navalny was first detained in January 2021 in a Moscow airport after spending months in Germany recovering from poisoning by a nerve agent. Since then, Russian authorities have brought forth a multitude of new charges against Mr. Navalny. According to his spokeswoman, he is currently a defendant in 14 criminal cases and faces potential sentences of up to 35 years in prison.
What activities did he pursue in prison?
Since entering the Russian prison system, Mr. Navalny has filed a string of lawsuits against the authorities. Despite his imprisonment in increasingly harsh conditions, he has remained a significant voice in Russian political life, publishing articles and manifestoes, and regularly posting on social media.