Russian dissident Alexey Navalny placed in isolation

Russian dissident Alexey Navalny has been placed in solitary confinement at the remote penal colony where he is serving a nine-year sentence for supposed fraud.

According to Navalny, he was placed in isolation because he was trying to form a prisoners' union. He filed a lawsuit asking his colony to reveal who buys the goods manufactured there.

Kremlin critics believe that Navalny was the victim of a 2020 poisoning attempt. Even though he knew he would be arrested as soon as his plane touched down in Moscow, he went back to Russia.

He said at the time that the criminal cases against him were fabrications. In the West, the arrest was seen as an attempt to silence one of the Russian president's few remaining opponents. They either fled or were killed.

When Navalny was sentenced to an additional nine years in March, he was already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence.

He was moved from Pokrov to the more distant prison at Melekhovo.

Navalny was isolated because of a violation of the prison's dress code. He said he was summoned from his barrack to the commission, where they announced that the video footage showed him regularly unbuttoning the top button of his prison robe.

According to Navalny, he is allowed to write for 75 minutes a day. He was able to convey his plight in a letter to his attorneys, who were able to read it on the internet.

Anna Veduta is a representative of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation in the US. The isolation unit is the most severe of punishments. Murder and torture are usually done there. She said that Sergei Magnitsky was tortured to death in the same way as he was. They rely on August vacations to make it go under the radar.

Navalny referred to his cell as aconcrete kennel in his letter. It's cold and damp most of the time. Water is on the floor. It is very hot and there is almost no air.

He said that no visitors are allowed and that the exercise consists of walking around a cell with a view of the sky. Navalny said it was just like in the movies.

He said that he was reading a book.