Missing for 6 days: The strange case of Alexei Navalny’s disappearance from jail

Can you go missing when in jail? According to the supporters of Alexei Navalny, the most vocal critic of Vladimir Putin, then you can. On Monday, his team of allies announced that the 47-year-old opposition leader has not been heard from for nearly a week and his lawyers have been unable to contact him. The timing of Navalny’s ‘disappearance’ is significant. Just last Friday, Russian leader Vladimir Putin declared that he would be standing for re-election next March. If he wins, Putin will join the club of longest-serving world leaders. So, where exactly is Alexei Navalny? What do we know about his whereabouts? Navalny ‘missing’ from prison On Monday, Alexei Navalny’s associates stated that they have been unable to contact him for the past six days. For the unaware, Navalny, who is world-known for his fierce criticism of Putin, is currently serving a prison term of 30 years on an array of charges. All the charges against him are widely viewed as politically motivated and Navalny, himself, has said that he doesn’t believe he will be freed from prison while Putin is alive. Kira Yarmysh, an aide to Navalny on Monday, told media outlets that Navalny had failed to appear by videoconference for a court hearing. The prison officials, according to Navalny’s aides, blamed a power outage for the opposition leader missing his court date. Later in the day, Navalny’s lawyers were told he was no longer listed as a prisoner at IK-6, the penal colony where he has been incarcerated in the Vladimir region near Moscow. “We assume that he could have been transferred, and that’s why other lawyers are trying to get in another colony in the Vladimir region – this is IK-7, a colony of special regime (Alexei is to be transferred to this regime, but we don’t know the exact colony, so this is just a guess),” said Yarmysh. **Also read: Is Russia slowly poisoning Putin critic Alexei Navalny in prison?** She later said Navalny was also not listed as a prisoner at IK-7 and “we still don’t know where he is”. Yarmysh expressed concern about Navalny and his recent poor health. “The fact that we cannot find Alexei is especially alarming because last week he became ill in his cell: he became dizzy and laid down on the floor. The colony staff immediately came running, lowered the bed, laid Alexei down and put [him] on an IV,” she said on X. [caption id=“attachment_13492622” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Workers remove a banner from a billboard, which shows the word “Russia”, the message “Happy New Year” and a QR code that is a gateway to a website of jailed Russian opposition politician and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s supporters, on the roadside in Moscow, Russia. Reuters[/caption] Timing of Navalny’s ‘disappearance’ Navalny’s ‘disappearance’ from prison, according to his aides, is related to Putin announcing his candidacy in next year’s presidential elections, his fifth term in power. Putin is the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Stalin and he would surpass that record if he stood for a sixth term, extending his rule until 2036. Navalny’s aide, Leonid Volkov, was quoted as saying that it was “zero per cent coincidence and 100 per cent direct manual political control from the Kremlin”. “It’s not a secret for Putin who his main opponent is in these ‘elections’,” he said. In fact, Navalny’s supporters have initiated an anti-Putin campaign, which has billboards being displayed in Moscow and other main cities of Russia with a QR-code linking to a website that calls for Putin critics to use non-violent methods to voice their dissent against the ruling regime. Reacting to reports of Navalny’s ‘disappearance’, the White House has also expressed concern with John Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, telling reporters, “He should never have been jailed in the first place, and we’re going to work with our embassy in Moscow to see how much more we can find out.” [caption id=“attachment_13492612” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Despite his prison sentence, Navalny has continued to voice his criticism against Vladimir Putin and the regime, earning him more supporters. File image/Reuters[/caption] Staunchest Putin critic The 47-year-old Navalny is, perhaps, the fiercest critic of Vladimir Putin and his regime. He has also been one of the loudest political opponents against Putin for more than two decades. Navalny has called Putin and the Russian judiciary as “traitors against the Russian people”. He’s also been vociferously against the Ukraine war, calling it pointless and saying “one crazy thief has seized hold of Ukraine and no one understands what he wants to do with it.” In 2020, he survived a poisoning attempt with a chemical weapon, which his supporters claim was the doing of Vladimir Putin. **Also read: Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny and more: The growing list of Vladimir Putin critics facing long jail terms** In January 2021 after he survived the poisoning attempt and returned to Moscow from Germany, he was detained shortly after landing at the airport. In the following month, he was handed a two-and-a-half-year sentence for breaching the conditions of a suspended sentence while recuperating in Germany, and sent to a penal colony. Later in March 2022, his prison term is extended to nine years after a conviction on new charges of embezzlement and contempt of court. Following this, he was transferred to a maximum-security prison, located around 250 km east of Moscow. However, his prison term didn’t silence him and he continued to denounce Putin and his regime. Navalny has spoken out forcefully against Putin’s war in Ukraine, calling for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops. He received a further jail extension when he is sentenced to an additional 19 years at a harsher “special regime” facility on charges of “extremism”. At that time, Navalny had said, “the number of years does not matter.” “I perfectly understand that, like many political prisoners, I am sitting on a life sentence. Where life is measured by the term of my life or the term of life of this regime,” he said in a statement. And on 1 December, Navalny said that Moscow had brought fresh charges of “vandalism” against him. With inputs from agencies