Alexei Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critics, has died in prison aged 47.
Convicted of charges that were widely considered to be political in nature, Mr Navalny was sentenced to 19 years behind bars in 2023.
He was moved to one of Russia’s toughest prisons, deep within the Arctic Circle, and it was there he passed away.
Alexei Navalny. Picture by: Alamy.comThe prison service said Mr Navalny had "felt unwell" after a walk today and "almost immediately lost consciousness".
They claimed efforts to revive him failed and are now trying to establish a cause of death.
EU Council President Charles Michel said Mr Navalny had made the "ultimate sacrifice" his values and beliefs.
"The EU holds the Russian regime for sole responsible for this tragic death," he said.
Anti-corruption
For years, Mr Navalny was a loathed thorn in the side of the Kremlin.
He was instrumental in the protest movement in Russia in 2011-2012 that formed to campaign against the Federation's rigged elections and endemic fraud.
His YouTube videos on corruption within the Russian establishment were hugely popular with the public and one video about 'Putin's Palace' on the Black Sea was viewed over 100 million times.
It meant, however, he gained a number of very powerful enemies.
Crackdown
In 2013, he received of the vote 27% in an election for Moscow mayoralty - an outcome few suspect was free or fair.
Five years later, he found himself banned from standing for public office and in 2020 he was poisoned with novichok - a weapons grade nerve agent used by the military.
Desperately ill, he was flown to Germany for medical treatment where he slowly recovered.
Despite the near death experience, he announced he would to return to Russia where he had only recently avoided death.
"Russia is my country, Moscow is my city, I miss them," he posted on social media.
He was arrested upon arrival and charged with an avalanche of crimes, ranging of extremism and terrorism to the rehabilitation of Nazism.
In August last year, a judge sentenced him to 19 years and he was moved to a maximum security penal colony, where his fellow inmates were some of Russia's most violent and dangerous inmates.
Yevgeny Prigozhin
Last year, another Putin critic, Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, also died suddenly.
Mr Prigozhin helped organised an aborted coup in June and died in a plane crash two months later.
Main image: Alexei Navalny. Picture by: Moscow City Court via AP.
