Putin Critic Navalny, Missing For Weeks, Turns Up In Arctic Gulag Prison

Moscow: Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has confirmed his arrival at what he described as a snow-swept prison above the Arctic Circle and said he was in excellent spirits despite a tiring 20-day journey to get there.

Navalny posted an update on social media via his lawyers after his allies lost touch with him for more than two weeks while he was in transit with no information about where he was being taken, prompting expressions of concern from Western politicians.

His spokeswoman said on Monday that Navalny, 47, had been tracked down to the IK-3 penal colony north of the Arctic Circle located in Kharp in the Yamal-Nenets region about 1900 kilometres north-east of Moscow.

“I am your new Santa Claus,” Navalny wrote jokingly in his first post from his new prison, a reference to the harsh weather conditions there.

“Well, I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (traditional Russian winter footwear).

“The 20 days of the transfer were quite tiring, but I’m still in an excellent mood, as Father Frost should be.”

Navalny’s new home, known as “the Polar Wolf” colony, is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Most prisoners there have been convicted of grave crimes. Winters are harsh – and temperatures are due to drop to about minus 28 degrees there over the next week.

The prison, about 60 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, was founded in the 1960s as part of what was once the gulag system of forced Soviet labour camps, according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper.