his last days in the freezing prison of the “Polar Wolf” – L’Express

Could it have been otherwise? He had resisted his Novichok poisoning, the repeated convictions, each more absurd than the last, and the inhumane conditions of detention in the worst Russian prisons, most recently in a former Soviet gulag in the Arctic. But Alexeï Navalny ended up passing away this Friday, February 16, at the age of 47. Leaving behind the image of an opponent too influential for Putin, even in the depths of the North Pole, to be left alive.

This Thursday, February 15, Navalny was still very much in this world, in the flesh. In a video relayed by the independent Russian media Sota. vision, we could see the Russian opponent being interviewed by a local judge, making jokes and being ironic about his situation. Thin, aged, but alive. Even going so far as to get a smile from the Kremlin agents. “In the last video of his life, he jokes. And that was his great quality. Humor can be stronger than the most furious proclamations. Navalny’s humor was even… disconcerting. Such a situation, and the man laughs! Every letter, every message on the networks or every appearance in court is full of irony and jokes”, Anton Orekh, an independent Russian journalist, said this Friday in the opposition media Novaya Gazeta – whose editor-in-chief Dmitri Mouratov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.

Repeated “disciplinary sanctions”

However, his detention conditions had become significantly tougher in recent weeks. First of all, there was his transfer to the “Polar Wolf”, this high-security prison located beyond the Arctic Circle, 1,900 kilometers north of Moscow, and heir to the Stalinist gulags. And if that wasn’t already enough, his movement from his previous place of detention took place over a period of almost three weeks, without his family or his lawyers having the slightest proof of life. It was the last time that the fate of Alexeï Navalny was really at the heart of the concerns of the international community, which then feared the worst.

Being detained at IK-3, named after this penal colony located in the town of Kharp, in the Yamal region, is harsh enough: temperatures dropping to -30 degrees in winter, frequent violence against prisoners, sanitary conditions worse than anything. But to add another layer, the Putin regime did not give him a minute to breathe. As since the start of his detention in 2022; Navalny was repeatedly sentenced to successive two-week “disciplinary sanctions”. “The Yamal colony decided to beat Vladimir’s record [NDLR, Poutine] in matters of appeasement to the Moscow authorities. She has just given me 15 days in a disciplinary cell. In other words, this is the 4th disciplinary unit in less than two months since I have been there. They are tough”, confided again this Wednesday the Russian opponent on his Twitter account.

These sanctions have been perpetual for Navalny since the start of his imprisonment: there were 27 of them, reports the last independent newspaper established in Russia, the Novaya Gazeta. And ever more grotesque: three days of detention for having one button undone, five days for not having immediately put one’s hands behind one’s back, fourteen days for refusing to wash the prison fence, eleven days for having “cleaned poorly”. the court” and having called an employee a “lieutenant”.

But the deterioration of detention conditions was very real, between an even more restricted diet, an increasingly cramped cell with almost inhuman comfort, and sleep made non-existent by constant awakenings by the guards. Without forgetting the freezing cold, obviously, which caused Navalny to regularly fall seriously ill, without access to a doctor or medication being made possible.

Committed to the end

This hardening did not prevent Navalny from continuing to express himself until the end on the Russian political situation, notably on his X account (formerly Twitter), one of his main showcases in the eyes of the West. So one of his last messages was a call for demonstrations during the presidential election in Russia, from March 15 to 17, explaining that this “could be a powerful demonstration of the state of mind of the country” and judging that the authorities could not oppose this demonstration “perfectly legal and safe.

This Friday in Munich, it was his wife Yulia Navalnaya, present at his side during all his fights, who spoke: “You have probably all seen the terrible news today. I was wondering if I should come here or fly straight to my children. Then I thought about what Alexei Navalny would say, and I’m sure he would be here, on this stage. I don’t even know whether to believe this terrible news or not that we only received from government sources. You all know that we cannot trust Putin’s government. But if it is true, I want Putin and all his entourage, his friends and his government to know that They will have to answer for what they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband. And that day will come soon.”