Yahoo News What we know about Alexei Navalny's 'death in prison'
Here's a full rundown of everything we know - and what we don't know - about the reported death of Russia's most prominent opposition leader.
Watch: Extraordinary life of the man who called for Russia's last large-scale protests
Russia's most prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny collapsed and died in jail on Friday, the country’s prison service has said.
Navalny was the fiercest domestic opponent of president Vladimir Putin. His supporters said they could not confirm he was dead, but that if he was then they believed he had been killed by the state.
UK security minister Tom Tugendhat echoed this, saying Putin’s regime “murdered” Navalny “to silence him”. Foreign secretary Lord David Cameron added “no one should be in any doubt about the dreadful nature of Putin’s regime in Russia after what has just happened”.
Here's a breakdown of what we know - and don't know - about Navalny’s reported death.
What we know
Russia’s prison service said Navalny collapsed and died on Friday after a walk at the "Polar Wolf" prison, above the Arctic Circle, where he was serving sentences totalling more than 30 years.
The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said Navalny felt unwell after the walk and lost consciousness almost immediately.
"All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results," the service said in a statement, adding causes of death were being established.
His family and spokesperson have said they have been told they must was for 14 days before Navalny's body will be released.
Following the announcement, his mother Lyudmila Navalnaya was quoted by Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta as saying her son had been "alive, healthy and happy" when she last saw him on Monday.
Navalny had also appeared in court, via videolink, on Thursday, a day before his reported death. He was said to be laughing and cracking jokes with the judge.
After the hearing, Navalny wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had been given 15 days in solitary confinement.
MPs in the UK are set to discuss the death of jailed Russian opposition leader when they return to Parliament on Monday afternoon, as the government weighs up its options for responding to the news.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron has already signalled that there could be fresh sanctions against Russian officials, amid questions for Russian authorities over how Navalny died and a mounting chorus of Western voices holding Vladimir Putin responsible.
On Monday, Downing Street would not comment on possible future sanctions, but paid tribute to Navalny and called for a full investigation.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “It is very clear that the Russian authorities saw him as a threat and that is why they imprisoned him on fabricated charges.
“The fact that the FSB (the Russian federal security service) poisoned him with a banned nerve agent and then sent him to an Arctic penal colony … his death must be fully investigated, and all of those in the Russian regime must be held to account.”
Navalny, 47, campaigned against official corruption and had organised major anti-government protests. He had been in prison since January 2021 after being convicted of fraud, contempt of court and extremism.
He was arrested on his return from Germany, where he had been recuperating after a nerve agent poisoning the previous year that he blamed on the Kremlin. Navalny rejected all charges against him, saying they were part of a politically motivated vendetta.
Since the start of his imprisonment, he had remained a thorn in the side of Putin via scathing attacks his associates posted on social media.
What we don't know
There has been no official cause of death released as yet. Navalny's wife Yulia Navalnaya claimed on Monday that the Kremlin was waiting for traces of the nerve agent Novichok to leave her husband's body, stating: "Vladimir Putin killed my husband... We know exactly why Putin killed Alexei three days ago. We will tell you about it soon.”
Navalny's body is thought to have been taken to Salekhard District Clinical Hospital, according to a report from an anonymous source, however his family said they had still not been given access to Navalny's body.
Speaking to the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper, an anonymous paramedic said Navalny's body was bruised.
“Such injuries, described by those that saw them, appear from seizures,” the paramedic said.
“The person convulses, they try to restrain him, and bruises appear. They also said that he also had a bruise on his chest. That is, they still tried to resuscitate him, and he died, most likely, from cardiac arrest.”
Outside of the Russian prison service statement, Navalny's death has not been officially independently verified.
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X that the politician’s team had received no confirmation of his death so far, and that his lawyer was travelling to the town where he was held.
The Russian prison service said the cause of death is “being established”, though any subsequent announcement cannot be taken at face value.
Russian Nobel Peace Laureate and newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov, speaking to Reuters, called the reported death a "murder" and that he believed Navalny's prison conditions caused his death.
Many Western politicians, without citing evidence, have bluntly accused the Kremlin of being involved in Navalny's reported death, and that Putin should be held accountable. However, if this is the case, we don't know the scale of Putin's involvement.
Shortly before meeting Yulia Navalnaya in Munich, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said: "His death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this."
