Navalny thrown into solitary confinement for third time in August

Anti-corruption campaigner renews calls for West to sanction more Kremlin-linked Russians over Ukraine war, writes Rory Sullivan

Alexei Navalny was detained in January 2021. (Reuters)

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has said he has been placed in solitary confinement for the third time this month.

Writing on social media via his lawyers, the Russian opposition leader confirmed that he received the punishment on Monday, the day after he was let out of his last stint in isolation.

The 46-year-old, who is serving an 11.5-year sentence in a high-security prison, said on Tuesday that he was given a week in solitary confinement for introducing himself incorrectly.

In his latest series of posts, Mr Navalny explained that the authorities were punishing him for his continued political activity.

“The fact is that I am ‘too politically active for a prisoner’,” he wrote. “The prisoners’ union I created is a source of great irritation: ‘We didn’t put him in jail for him to create labour unions here’.”

Mr Navalny said he will now have to sit for seven days “on an iron stool in a 2x3-metre cell eating nothing but slop”.

However, the anti-corruption campaigner said his suffering was nothing compared with that of Ukraine.

Solitary confinement “is obviously a hellish closet and is utterly unpleasant”, Mr Navalny wrote.

“You have to pay a price for truth and independence, and I am paying mine. And I’m no worse off than many others, I don’t have bombs falling on me here,” he added.

His Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), which is banned in Russia, continues to call on the West to sanction hundreds more prominent Russians who it says are linked to the Kremlin.

“Putting pressure on Putin’s corrupt elite to the point of splitting it is what we need now,” Mr Navalny wrote on Tuesday, mentioning how “only 46 of the wealthiest 200 Russians” are under sanctions.

Mr Navalny was detained last January after returning from Germany, where he was receiving treatment after being poisoned by a nerve agent in Russia.