VLADIMIR Putin’s top critic Alexei Navalny has allegedly died in a hellhole Siberia prison as Kremlin foes claim he was murdered.

Prison officials today said the jailed Russian opposition leader, 47, collapsed inside a brutal Polar Wolf jail where he was being kept and could not be resuscitated.

Navalny was one of Putin’s greatest enemies and his leading domestic critic in Russia – bravely challenging the tyrant’s brutal war in Ukraine.

He had suffered serious health problems in jail, and was – according to prison officials – out for a walk in the prison compound when he mysteriously collapsed.

Russian staff then claimed that medics were called, but were not able to resuscitate him.

Conflicting reports said the Kremlin critic was being held in solitary confinement when he reportedly died, according to the Human Rights Foundation.

READ MORE ON NAVALNY

Fierce critics of Putin have already come out to slam Russian tyrant Putin, dubbing Navalny’s reported death “political murder”.

Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics raged on X that Navalny was “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”.

“Whatever you think about Alexei Navalny, as a politician he was just brutally murdered by the Kremlin. 

“This is a fact, and this is what you need to know about the true nature of the current Russian regime. My condolences to family and friends.”

Most read in The Sun

And Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy raged “Obviously, Putin killed him”.

Inside Putin foe Navalny’s new hellhole Arctic jail where ‘rampant torture and beatings break the strongest prisoners’

Navalny’s wife Yulia insisted Putin will be “held accountable” if her husband is confirmed dead.

She said: “I don’t know whether to believe or not this terrible news that we only receive from Russian government sources. 

“For many years we cannot trust Putin and the Putin government. They always lie.

“But if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will be held accountable for everything they did to our country, to my family. And this day will happen very soon.

“I want to call on the international community and all people to unite and defeat this evil.”

Navalny was first picked up by Vlad’s brutal police in 2021 after returning to Russia following an assassination attempt.

And when a sham trial in Russia found him guilty of trumped-up charges, the brave Putin challenger was locked up amid fears that he would not come out alive.

Navalny then went missing from a hellish Russian jail last year – and supporters warned that he could be executed.

He was later found in one of the toughest prisons in the country in Siberia – known as “the Polar Wolf” colony.

In total Putin’s number one enemy had spent 308 days banged up – and there were reports that a sadistic Putin even demanded to see live footage of Navalny undergoing punishment and being humiliated by guards. 

What we know so far…

  • Officials at the ‘Polar Wolf’ jail where Navalny was held claim he collapsed during a walk outside and died today
  • Ukraine’s Zelensky and Latvian president Rinkevics claim Putin murdered the Kremlin critic
  • The dad-of-two, aged just 47, had sent his wife a heartfelt Valentine’s letter days before his reported death
  • His mum Lyudmila said she saw Navalny a few days ago and he seemed healthy and cheerful
  • Navalny was last pictured yesterday appearing in court via video link – he looked thin and had a shaved head
  • The Kremlin enemy had spent 308 days locked up in Russia on trumped-up charges – including for extremism and terrorism
  • British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Putin should be ‘held accountable’
  • Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said she has had no official confirmation of his death – but a lawyer is investigating

A statement from prison officials today read: “On February 16, 2024, in correctional colony No. 3, convict Navalny A.A. felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness.”

An ambulance reached the brutal jail in just seven minutes – getting to Navalny’s side in another two, Interfax reported.

“The doctors who arrived at the scene continued the resuscitation measures that were already being provided by the penal colony’s doctors.

“And they spent more than half an hour. However, the patient died,” said the local hospital.

Navalny had sent a Valentines message to his wife Yulia, 47, just days ago from inside the Siberian prison.

The heartfelt letter read: “Baby, everything is like in a song with you: between us there are cities, the take-off lights of airfields, blue snowstorms and thousands of kilometres.

“But I feel that you are near every second, and I love you more and more.”

The pair share two children, a daughter Daria and son Zakhar.

Today Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said she has had no confirmation of his death – but his lawyer is dashing to the jail to find out more.

 She said: “The [prison service]  in the Yamalo-Nenets region is spreading the news about the death of Alexei Navalny.

“We don’t have any confirmation of this yet.”

And his mother Lyudmila said: “I don’t want to send any condolences. We saw our son in the colony on the 12th…He was alive, healthy, cheerful.”

The life of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s biggest critic

HERE is a timeline that took the leader of the opposition from the face of freedom in Russia and the Kremlin’s biggest foe to a hellhole Siberian prison and onto an early grave.

June 4, 1976 — Navalny is born in a western part of the Moscow region
1997 — Graduates from Russia’s RUDN university, where he majored in law
2004 — Forms a movement against rampant over-development in Moscow
2008 — Gains notoriety for calling out corruption in state-run corporation
December 2011 — Participates in mass protests sparked by reports of widespread rigging of Russia’s election, and is arrested and jailed for 15 days for “defying a government official.”
March 2012 – Further mass protests break out and Navalny accuses key Kremlin cronies of corruption
July 2012 — Russia’s Investigative Committee charges Navalny with embezzlement. He rejects the claims and says they are politically motivated
2013 — Navalny runs for mayor in Moscow
July 2013 — A court in Kirov convicts Navalny of embezzlement in the Kirovles case, sentencing him to five years in prison – he appeals and is allowed to continue campaign
September 2013 — Official results show Navalny finishes second in the mayor’s race
February 2014 — Navalny is placed under house arrest
December 2014 — Navalny and his brother, Oleg, are found guilty of fraud
February 2016 — The European Court of Human Rights rules that Russia violated Navalny’s right to a fair trial
November 2016 — Russia’s Supreme Court overturns Navalny’s sentence
December 2016 — Navalny announces he will run in Russia’s 2018 presidential election
February 2017 — The Kirov court retries Navalny and upholds his five-year suspended sentence from 2013
April 2017 – Survives an assassination attempt he blames on Kremlin
December 2017 — Russia’s Central Electoral Commission bars him from running for president
August, 2020 – Navalny falls into a coma on a flight and his team suspects he was poisoned. German authorities confirm he was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent
Jan 2021 — After five months in Germany, Navalny is arrested upon his return to Russia
Feb 2021 — A Moscow court orders Navalny to serve 2 ½ years in prison
June 2021 — A Moscow court shuts down Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his extended political network
Feb 2022 — Russia invades Ukraine
March 2022 — Navalny is sentenced to an additional nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court
2023 — Over 400 Russian doctors sign an open letter to Putin, urging an end to what it calls abuse of Navalny, following reports that he was denied basic medication & suffering from slow poisoning
April, 2023 — Navalny from inside prison says he was facing new extremism and terrorism charges that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life
Aug 2023 – A court in Russia extends Navalny’s prison sentence by 19 years
Dec 2023 – He disappears from his prison as his team fear he could be assassination. He then reappears weeks later in one of Siberia’s toughest prisons – the ‘Polar Wolf’ colony

James Rodgers, journalism lecturer and City University’s presidential envoy on Ukraine, told The Sun that Navalny had caused “considerable embarrassment” to the Kremlin and had “paid with his life”.

Rodgers also said Navalny’s health had obviously deteriorated during his years behind bars and questioned why he was walking outside in freezing temperatures. 

“He was the most high profile critic of the Kremlin. A lot of people are going to be looking at this, and saying, well, in effect, he has paid with his life.

“It was pretty clear that if he needed medical attention when he was in custody. He wasn’t getting everything that he needed.

“He was in the penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. It is really, really, really harsh conditions, and if this was the only conditions he was getting to exercise in, that’s not going to help somebody who was already in poor health.”

Two brave Russians, human rights activist Lev Shlosberg and investigative journalist Andrey Zakharov, both said today he was killed by the mad despot.

Zakharov raged: “Navalny did not die, he was killed. 

“And they are killing the dream of millions of people to live in a normal country.”

And exiled Russian politician Dmitry Gudkov has fumed that even if Putin did not have Navalny assassinated – his death would still be the tyrant’s fault.

“Even if Alexey died from “natural” causes, they were caused by his poisoning and further prison torture. 

“Blood is on Putin,” he fumed.

Gudkov also warned that Navalny’s alleged death sets a dangerous precedent for prisoners who oppose Putin to suffer a “death penalty” at the hands of his “henchmen”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today said: “This is terrible news. As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life.

“My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Russia, for whom this is a huge tragedy.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said: “Putin should be accountable for what has happened – no one should doubt the dreadful nature of his regime.”

Navalny’s death was ‘inevitable’

by Jerome Starkey, Defence Editor

NAVALNY’S death is shocking – but there’s also a sense of inevitability about this.

His spokesperson had warned that they thought he was being slowly killed in prison.

And indeed, the lifespan of Kremlin critics is tragically short.

It was astonishing in many ways that Alexei Navalny had survived.

We’ve had Latvia’s president calling this a brutal murder by the Kremlin.

We’ve had President Zelensky of Ukraine, saying Putin killed him.

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Schulz and France’s Foreign Minister are saying that Navalny paid for his principles with his life.

There is certainly no doubt that as a result of his political activism. As a result of daring to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

Alexei Navalny exposed himself to enormous risk and hardship. We know that he was poisoned.

We know that he’s been jailed. He’s been held in horrific conditions. Indeed, you know.

Many, many days of his time in this penal colony have been in solitary confinement in punishment cells.

His health appears to have been deteriorating. So in that sense, you know, he’s been jailed by the regime that Putin leads.

He’s been poisoned with a nerve agent, a military grade nerve agent that is only really available to Putin’s assassins.

And that clearly would have had long-term health implications. So in that sense, clearly the Kremlin regime, led by Vladimir Putin, is culpable for his death.

 It is not clear yet exactly what caused his death. But there’s no doubt that the Kremlin regime, led by Vladimir Putin, is culpable to some extent because of what they’ve inflicted. 

US President Joe Biden previously warned that the consequences for Russia would be “devastating” if Navalny died in prison.

Vice President Kamala Harris said if the claims of his death are true, it serves as further evidence of Putin’s brutality.

He was seen for the last time yesterday in court – via video link. His head was shaved and he looked thin – but appeared to be keeping positive and even made some jokes.

Former Director of the CIA David Petraeus told Times Radio the news is a “tragedy” and described him as “the most courageous, most significant opponent of Vladimir Putin”.

The head of Navalny’s FBK party Maria Pevchikh had warned last year: “We are worried for his life.

“He’s in the hands of the very same people who tried to kill him before.

“If they once got an authorisation to murder Navalny, do they have another one now or is the last one still valid. Navalny’s life is constantly at a high risk.”

Navalny was poisoned by the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in August 2020, which he claimed was an assassination attempt by the Kremlin.

He was then thrown into prison for 19 years on trumped-up charges of extremism and fraud.

The Kremlin critic has previously warned of Putin’s desperation to silence him, after his team published a list of 200 oligarchs accused of being “directly responsible for the aggressive war launched against Ukraine.”

READ MORE SUN STORIES

And a disturbing video interview earlier this year with him revealed he was suffering from mystery stomach aches, seizures and had lost 18lbs in less than a month – sparking fears of a slow poisoning.

An investigator also allegedly told him he was set to face a fresh trial over terrorism charges which could have led to imprisonment for life.