The team of Russian politician Alexey Navalny has identified prison staff members responsible for placing Navalny in a solitary confinement cell 11 times since August 2022, the video with details is published on YouTube.
Navalny’s associate Ruslan Shaveddinov accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “trying to get rid of Navalny” through the prison staff members, who were identified as the following:
- Colonel Dmitry Nozhkin, prison warden. The Navalny team claims that Nozkin gets messages directly from Moscow and regularly holds meetings with his subordinates regarding Navalny;
- Lieutenant colonel Yuri Fomin, deputy warden for security and correctional work. Every year Fomin declares an income of 1 million rubles (€13,000), but in 2015 he bought a BMW X5 worth at least 3.5 million rubles (€46,000), the Navalny team revealed;
- Lieutenant Mikhail Neymovich, “tracks every step” taken by Navalny. The politician landed in the solitary confinement cell for the seventh time because of him after failing to address Neymovich properly.
The Navalny team also shed the light on the scheme that the prison administration uses to place Navalny in the punishment cell. Putin orders his administration to send an instruction to the prison, the administration then holds a meeting and allocates tasks. A commision is then convened to vote to send the politician in the cell.
On 25 January, the news emerged that Navalny was sent to the solitary confinement cell for the 11th time. In total, the politician spent 113 days there since mid-August. “I am faced with pressure from all sides over my political activity: they imposed censorship, I am kept in a solitary confinement cell, a nutcase was put opposite of me and he screams, this cage was put up as well,” the politician said.
On 18 January, member of Russia’s Public Oversight Commission Alexander Melnikov shared his impression about visiting the prison where Navalny is confined. According to him, he and his colleague Volkov managed to bring medicine for the politician which was accepted. “In general, I liked the prison from the financial side, how labour and educational work are organised,” he concluded.
Following the Public Oversight Commission members’ visit and their complaint about the dim lighting in the punishment cell where Navalny is kept, the administration set up a very bright lamp there. The politician lamented that “it is even difficult to read with this light and you want to cover your eyes with your hand” with this light, while he has to endure it for 16 hours a day.
