Alexey Navalny’s last post on X, formerly known as Twitter, said the Kremlin critic was going to be placed in Russian solitary confinement on Feb. 14, just two days before Russia reported that he died on Friday.
“They just gave me 15 days in a punishment cell,” Navalny said in reference to solitary confinement, per a translation of his tweet. “It’s the fourth punishment cell in less than 2 months that I have been with them.”
That was just three days after he gotten out of a 10-day stint in solitary.
Navalny, a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was serving a 19-year sentence on charges deemed to be politically motivated when he reportedly died. He was on a walk and collapsed before he was pronounced dead, according to the Russian Federal Prison Service.
The move to place Navalny in solitary marked the 27th time in which Navalny had been put in a punishment cell, his spokesperson said. In total, he spent around 300 days in isolation.
Navalny almost died in 2020 after being poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent that was traced back to the Novichok family. After recovering from the incident, Navalny returned to Russia and had been imprisoned there since January 2021.
Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, told audience members at a conference in Germany on Friday that she could not confirm her husband’s death shortly after Russia had announced it.
She urged others to not believe Putin and his government and said that they “are lying constantly.”
“We should come together and fight against this evil,” she said. “We should fight against this evil regime in Russia today.”
Speaking Friday afternoon about the news surrounding Navalny, President Joe Biden said that the US does not have all the details. But if Navalny is dead, he said, “make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death.”
