Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Dies in Jail

The Russian opposition leader and only visible Putin critic Alexei Navalny has died in prison, The Guardian reported.

Russia’s Federal Prison Service said in a statement that Navalny had died after feeling unwell following a walk on Friday, according to a NBC news.

International media outlets have suspected a political assassination behind the death of Navalny.

Navalny, 47, one of Putin’s most visible and persistent critics, was being held in a jail about four miles north of the Arctic Circle where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a “special regime”.

The Kremlin, however, said it had no information on the case of death.

He went missing in Russia’s penal system in December, eventually turning up at a high-security penal colony in a remote town above the Arctic Circle.

Navalny was poisoned with a military nerve agent while on a business trip in Russia in 2020 — an attempt on his life that he blamed directly on Putin — and spent his final years behind bars, according to international news agencies.