Allies of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny expressed relief on reading a message the Kremlin critic posted on Tuesday reassuring them that he was “fine”. But their relief was tempered by grave concern about the harsh conditions he faces in the Arctic prison known as “Polar Wolf”.
Navalny’s whereabouts had been unknown for almost three weeks before his allies on Monday said they had located him in a remote penal colony in Russia’s far north.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’m totally relieved that I’ve finally made it,” Navalny wrote on X on Tuesday after arriving at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region, about 1,200 miles north-east of Moscow.
Navalny’s comments, shared by his associates on his social media profiles, were infused with a heavy touch of irony and humour, a distinctive hallmark of the opposition leader’s communication style.
His long-time aide, Ruslan Shaveddinov, told the Guardian: “Like millions of other Navalny supporters, I was so happy to hear he is doing OK. The letter was written in typical Navalny fashion. It was a clear signal to the world that he remains in good spirits, that he is not a broken man, despite his circumstances.”
Shaveddinov said the relief he felt when his team found Navalny quickly gave way to concern over grim conditions inside the new colony, which is known as one of the toughest prisons in Russia.
The Kharp high-security prison colony holding Navalny was established under Stalin as part of the Soviet Union’s gulag network and is one of the most remote prisons in Russia. The “Polar Wolf” colony is surrounded by mountains and tundra, with freezing dark winters making way for short, mosquito-infested summers
“I don’t say ‘Ho-ho-ho,’ but I do say ‘Oh-oh-oh’ when I look out of the window,” Navalny wrote, alluding to the near-constant darkness outside. “Where I can see it’s night, then evening, then night again.”
Most prisoners there have been convicted of serious crimes, Shaveddinov said, including murder and banditry.
Former prisoners of the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp have also described instances of torture there. In a 2018 interview with the Novie Izvestiya outlet, one former convict said that on arrival to the colony, he was beaten “from all sides with a truncheon”, adding that the prison guards practised “collective punishment” on inmates.
One major difference from Navalny’s previous prison camp is that letters will take much longer to reach him. Allies said his transfer could be linked to the forthcoming presidential election in March, ahead of which many Kremlin critics have been jailed or fled.
“It is almost impossible to get to this colony; it is almost impossible to even send letters there,” Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief strategist, wrote on social media. For lawyers to get to Kharp, they would need to take a train that usually takes more than 40 hours.
“This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world, which is what it was all about,” Volkov added.
Shaveddinov knows first-hand some of the harsh climate conditions Navalny will face. In 2019, he was forcibly conscripted and sent to serve at an Arctic base, in a move his supporters said amounted to kidnapping.
“I shivered when I thought just how cold Navalny will be there,” he said.
