Kremlin opponent Alexej Navalny does not back down in prison either. Since he wants to form a camp union and has unbuttoned the top button of his uniform, he is apparently locked in a solitary cell. There was water on the floor, it was "cold and damp," said Navalny.
After trying to found a union, the imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he was transferred to a solitary cell. "Greetings from solitary confinement," he wrote in online networks. "Union struggle is never easy, but then what about unions in prison?" Officially, he was transferred to the solitary cell because he broke the dress code and unbuttoned the top button of his prison uniform.
Navalny said he would have to stay in solitary confinement for three days. However, the prison authorities warned him that it could become his "permanent place of residence" if he "does not reconsider his attitude". Navalny described his cell as a tiny "concrete kennel."
"Most of the time it's unbearable in there because it's cold and damp. There's water on the floor," wrote President Vladimir Putin's opponent, adding ironically: "I have the beach version - it's very hot there and it's almost ok no air." The window is tiny, there is no ventilation. "At night you lie there and feel like a fish out of water. At 5 a.m. they take away your mattress and pillow (...) and lift your bunk. At 9 p.m. the bunk is lowered again and the mattress brought back. There is an iron table, an iron bench, a sink, a hole in the floor and two cameras on the ceiling."
Navalny was transferred to the penal colony in the city of Vladimir, 200 kilometers east of Moscow, in June. Last week he announced that he had set up a "one-man union" in the prison camp where he works in a sewing workshop. According to Navalny, the union has already achieved a "first victory" by ensuring that the stools of the prisoners who work in the sewing room are replaced with chairs.
Navalny is the most prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is known for calling for mass protests and exposing cases of corruption in Russia. He was arrested at Moscow Airport on his return from Germany in January 2021. He had previously been treated in Berlin for poisoning he suffered in Russia with a neurotoxin from the Novichok group, for which he blames the Kremlin.
