Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s main political opponent, who is serving a 19-year prison sentence, was spotted Monday in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic. For several experts, isolated detention centers with strict conditions are the direct heirs of the Gulag system of the Soviet era.
His relatives had not received any sign of life for three weeks. Monday, December 25, Alexeï Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s main political opponent, was able to provide news of his detention, through his lawyer, who was authorized to visit him. And these are not necessarily reassuring for the 47-year-old activist.
The founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), sentenced last August to 19 years in prison for “extremism”, has just been transferred to the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, located in the Yamalo-Nenetsia region, in -beyond the Arctic Circle, and nearly 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow. The opponent disappeared at the beginning of December from the penal colony in the Vladimir region, worrying even the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who sent a message about X before Christmas.
1/9 I am your new Santa Claus.
Well, I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (a traditional Russian winter footwear). I have grown a beard for the 20 days of my transportation.
— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) December 26, 2023
In a series of messages with a humorous tone published on a fur hat with flaps that cover the ears) and soon I will have valenki (traditional Russian winter shoes). I grew a beard during the 20 days of my transport (…). The 20 days transportation have been quite exhausting, but I am still in a good mood, as befits a Santa Claus.”
“Breaking ties between prisoners and their loved ones”
Behind these ironic tweets, however, lies a much harsher reality. In Kharp, where he is, Alexeï Navalny will have to face temperatures of up to -40 ° C in winter, his access to emails and his visiting rights will be severely limited. “Even if Navalny always remains provocative, always shows humor, he has health problems, and faces isolation, even torture, which exists in certain Russian prisons,” recalls Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador to Moscow between 2017 and 2019. “The weather conditions are very harsh, much harsher than in previous colonies,” adds Marc Élie, historian of the Gulag at the Center for the Study of the Russian, Caucasian and Central Worlds. European (Cercec). There is little light for six months of the year, and in summer you are attacked by mosquitoes and midges.”
The Kharp penal colony is one of 700 labor camps currently operating in Russia, where nearly 266,000 inmates are locked up. A historically low figure, linked to the sending of convicts to the front in Ukraine. Before the war began in 2022, there were nearly 420,000 prisoners in the country.
“In Russia, you have four types of confinement, explains the historian Marc Élie: the open-type colony, in which the prisoners are very free; the general regime, where the majority of prisoners are locked up in barracks; the regime severe, with stronger restrictions, notably on visiting rights; and the exceptional regime, which Navalny finds himself in. The latter regime is reserved for the most dangerous prisoners, those sentenced to life imprisonment or those whose death penalty has been was commuted to life imprisonment.”
Read alsoIn Magadan, on the last traces of the Russian gulags
For many observers, these penal colonies are part of the legacy of the Gulag, the concentration camp system which allowed the deportation of more than 20 million people during the Soviet era. Although the Gulag officially disappeared after Stalin’s death in 1953, some of its characteristics persist in the current prison system. Founded in the early 1960s and able to accommodate around a thousand inmates, the Kharp penal colony is also built on the old 501e Gulag.
“The prison world retains a certain number of features which date back to the Stalinist era, notably the idea of the climate as a tool of repression, notes Emilia Koustova, lecturer at the University of Strasbourg and specialist in the Russian world. also very isolated places. For three weeks, we no longer knew where Navalny was. There is a use of arbitrariness which has persisted since the Stalinist era with a desire to break the links between the detainees and their loved ones. This breaking ties becomes a means of repression and terror, or blackmail.” Before his transfer to IK-3, Alexeï Navalny was also faced with multiple periods of prison isolation. “In total, 236 days will have passed,” noted last October its spokesperson, Kira Iarmych.
“There is a desire to ignore him and to attack him”
Considered by Vladimir Putin as his main enemy, Alexei Navalny continues to pay the price for his relentlessness against corruption and for denouncing the Kremlin’s despotic regime. On August 20, 2020, the lawyer and activist suffered an attempted Novichok poisoning which required emergency hospitalization and long rehabilitation in Germany. During a press conference, the head of the Kremlin denied being behind the operation: “If we had wanted it, the affair would have been brought to an end,” he declared.
For Emilia Koustova, also a member of the board of directors of the NGO Mémorial France, “Putin clearly has a very particular attitude towards Navalny, he never mentions his name, there is a desire to ignore him and to attack him. His transfer to a colony which is characterized by a particularly harsh regime goes in this direction.”
Read alsoIn Paris, the NGO Memorial continues its fight against a Russian state that is rewriting history
The transfer of Alexei Navalny also comes three months before the next Russian presidential election in which Vladimir Putin has declared himself a candidate. “On this subject, Alexeï Navalny will no longer be able to convey political messages,” says Emilia Koustova. The re-election of Vladimir Putin – rid of his main detractor – for a six-year mandate, authorized by the constitutional referendum of 2020, appears to be a simple formality, in the absence of a solid opposition. The last adversaries who tried to shake up the Kremlin strongman were killed or imprisoned, like Andreï Pivovarov, former director of the Open Russia movement, or Ilia Iachine, 38, figure of the opposition. According to the count of the human rights NGO Mémorial France, whose central body was dissolved by the Russian Supreme Court in September 2021, there are currently more than 500 political prisoners in Russia.
Last Saturday, the candidacy of journalist Ekaterina Dountsova was rejected by the Russian Electoral Commission for “errors in documents”. “In reality, there is no credible opposition, not to mention that many people of his generation are very favorable to the re-election of Vladimir Putin. He has every chance of being re-elected with a fairly high rate,” confirms the former ambassador Sylvie Bermann. The Russian presidential election will be held on March 17, 2024.
