Topline
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wrote an open letter posted to social media Tuesday describing his transfer to a penal colony in the Arctic with humor, calling himself the “new Santa Claus” due to his beard and telling supporters not to worry about him, after the Kremlin critic disappeared from a Russian prison for over two weeks.
The Russian opposition leader called himself Santa Claus and said he wasn’t expecting to be located … [+] until January. (Moscow City Court Press Service via AP, File)
Key Facts
Navalny, who couldn’t be located for over two weeks by his team, was transported from Penal Colony No. 6 east of Moscow to a colony in the Arctic Circle called IK- 3 Polar Wolf, which his lawyer, Ivan Zhdanov, described as “one of the northernmost and most remote colonies in general.”
In his letter, Navalny joked there are no reindeer, but instead “huge fluffy, and very beautiful shepherd dogs,” and the “most important thing” is that he now lives “above the Arctic Circle” in a village called Kharp, adding his 20-day transportation was “pretty exhausting” but he’s “still in a good mood, as befits a Santa Claus.”
Navalny said he was brought to the penal colony on Saturday night and didn’t expect to be found before mid-January, adding he was “surprised” when he was told a lawyer was at the prison to see him.
The opposition leader said he “can’t entertain” his supporters “with stories about polar exotics yet” because he hasn’t seen anything outside of his “camera window” except the prison fence.
Navalny told supporters he’s “fine” and “totally relieved” after the transport, finishing with another joke that as “a special-regime Santa Claus,” “only those who have behaved very badly get presents.”
Key Background
Navalny was located Monday in the high-security Arctic prison after disappearing for 21 days from the penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence. His spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said on X the opposition leader was moved to Kharp, which is a settlement in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District. Zhdanov said the Arctic prison doesn’t have a letter-writing system in place, and doesn’t allow access to the app Zonatelecom, preventing Navalny from communicating with his lawyers. Navalny, an anti-corruption activist and one of Russia’s most prominent opposition leaders, lost a Moscow mayor race in 2013 and ran for president in Russia’s 2018 elections before being disqualified, which led to protests. In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a nerve-agent called Novichok on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow—an attack that Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied any involvement in. Since then, Navalny was found guilty of fraud and contempt of court in 2022, which brought a nine year prison sentence, and was sentenced in August to another 19 years in prison on charges of extremism, a set of charges widely seen as politicized.
Further Reading
Putin Critic Navalny Found In Arctic Prison—21 Days After Going Missing (Forbes)
