Alexei Navalny Returned to Solitary Confinement for 11th Time

© The Moscow Times

Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was returned to solitary confinement for the 11th time since his nine-year prison sentence began in March, his press secretary Kira Yarmysh said on Wednesday.

Navalny said that he was sent to solitary confinement for "introducing himself incorrectly," according to Yarmysh.

“Apparently, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not like our campaign and the Oscar nomination of the film,” Yarmysh said, referring to the U.S.-produced fly-on-the-wall documentary "Navalny," which was nominated for an Academy Award on Tuesday.

Navalny’s supporters have recently launched the “Free Navalny” campaign to sound the alarm over his deteriorating health and the refusal of prison doctors to treat him.

This week, the winners of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize called on the Red Cross to “interfere” in the fate of Navalny.

Navalny, 46, built a huge social media operation by producing videos that exposed endemic corruption among Russian government officials before being handed a nine-year jail sentence in 2022.

Navalny has condemned his regular stints in cramped solitary confinement cells at his prison colony for the smallest of infractions and bemoaned the fact that he is no longer allowed to have visits from his family, calling his treatment an attempt to silence his continued activism from behind bars.

Navalny’s return to solitary confinement comes a day after a replica of his tiny punishment cell was opened outside the Russian embassy in Berlin to protest the dire conditions the Kremlin critic is being forced to endure.