Kremlin enemy number one Navalny ‘suffers serious health incident’ in jail as Putin aims for six more years in power

The jailed lawyer had already survived two previous assassination attempts by poisoning – one of which left him in a coma in hospital.

Alexei Navalny has suffered a serious health incident in jail as supporters say his life could be at risk as he hasn’t been seen for days.

Navalny is known as one of the top enemies of the Kremlin and according to his spokesperson hasn’t been fed for days as he suffered a “hunger faint” and fell over in his cell, The Sun reports.

Alexei Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh spoke about the worrying situation on her official X account.

She wrote: “He fell ill in his cell last week. He got dizzy and laid down on the floor. The colony staff came over immediately, lowered the cot, laid Alexey down and gave him an IV.

“We don’t know what it was, but given the fact that he’s not being fed, is being kept in a punishment cell with no ventilation and the time for walks has been reduced to a minimum, it looks like a hunger faint.”

According to the 47-year-old’s team Navalny wasn’t allowed to be seen by anyone after he’d fainted.

Alexey's @navalny lawyers stood all day in front of IK-6, his current colony, and IK-7, a colony of the special regime in the Vladimir region. Everywhere they were told to "wait", and in the end they were denied entry.

The fact that we can't find Alexey is particularly worrying…

— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) December 8, 2023

Lawyers were told they had to wait to see him until the time was right after repeatedly being denied entry to where he was being kept.

Navalny has since spoken to his team but all communication has been stopped for three days since the lawyers last saw him.

Yarmysh continued: “Now it’s the third day that we don’t know where he is.

“Before that, there were at least occasional letters from him, albeit censored ones, but there have been no letters all week.

“The fact that we can’t find Alexey is particularly worrying.”

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny appears on a screen set up at a courtroom of the Moscow City Court via a video link from his prison on May 24, 2022. Picture: Alexander Nemenov / AFP

This photograph taken on June 11, 2023 shows a life-size replica of the cell in which Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is imprisoned, installed on the Place des Nations in Geneva. Picture: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP

Navalny – who has been described as “the man Putin fears most” by the Washington Post has already faced two life threatening situations many believe to be at the hands of Russian officials.

The leader of the Russian opposition Progress Party was left in a coma after two attempts to poison him with the nerve agent Novichok, that many believe was down to Putin’s orders.

The news comes just as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he will run again for president in the 2024 elections in a move that could see him stay in power until at least 2030.

The tyrant leader is all but certain to be elected for a fifth time after two already brutal decades of his iron-fist rule.

Navalny has previously claimed Putin is desperate to silence him, after the major Kremlin critic and his team published a list of 200 oligarchs accused of being “directly responsible for the aggressive war launched against Ukraine.”

The list of 200 names was part of a wider “List of 6,000” Putin accomplices and Russian war enablers that angered the state leaders.

Navalny said: “The Kremlin’s really furious at our work to promote the “List of 6,000” – the list of oligarchs, bribetakers and warmongers, against whom sanctions must be imposed.

“The people on the list are very worried and are demanding measures to be taken to make the ACF (and me personally) ‘back off’.”

The already imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny (2L) as he listens to his verdict over a series of extremism charges at the IK-6 penal colony, on August 4, 2023. Picture: Alexander Nemenov / AFP

Protesters hold placards as they gather outside the Russian Embassy in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, in London on June 4, 2023, to mark Alexei Navalny's 47th birthday. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his wife Yulia and brother Oleg take part in a march at Strastnoy Boulevard in protest of Russian politician and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead in 2015. This picture is from 2019. Picture: Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Since January 2021, Navalny has sat in Russian jail cells serving a devastating nine years behind bars on “cooked up” fraud charges

The brave Kremlin nemesis was convicted of large-scale embezzlement and contempt after a trial that was widely seen as a sham.

Navalny is currently at a hellish gulag about 250 kilometres north of Moscow, where it is claimed he is being silenced by the Kremlin and punished for his public disapproval of the way Russia is run.

A video interview earlier this year with him, revealed he suffered mystery stomach aches, seizures and lost 8 kilograms in less than a month – sparking fears of a slow poisoning.

Navalny has also claimed he now faces extremism charges, which could tack an additional 30 years on his sentence.

An investigator also allegedly told him he faces a fresh trial over terrorism charges which could see him imprisoned for life.

Most of his time in jail has reportedly been served in isolated rooms as the Kremlin looks to crack down on anyone going against Putin and his regime.

This article originally appeared in The Sun and was reproduced here with permission.

Originally published as Kremlin enemy number one Navalny ‘suffers serious health incident’ in jail as Putin aims for six more years in power