Alexsej Navalny looks like a ghost of himself. Pale, visibly skinny, Russia’s political opponent, the Kremlin’s number one enemy, showed himself unfazed as he listened. Last Monday, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud. His arms folded, as if bragging about coldness, the defector could not hide his physical condition which worried his supporters, human rights organizations and Western powers.

Navalny’s guest since last year In the penal colony N2 in the city of Pokrov, In the Vladimir region where the standards of detention are certainly internationally accepted, including with regard to food. On the contrary, N2 is famous for its harsh prison system.

Last year, his wife Yulia Navalnaya wrote on Instagram that she had visited her husband in the penal colony and found him extremely weak: He struggles to speak and sometimes drops the headset and puts his head on the table to rest. Protesting the lack of medical help, the dissident also began a 24-day hunger strike to get proper treatment for back and leg pain. The opponent claimed that for his case, only simple oral anti-inflammatories were given by camp doctors. At night, the guards woke him every hour to check on him. On April 23, 2021, the blogger started eating again due to his deteriorating health.

Navalny, 45, got interested in politics in the 1990s: at first Join the liberal Yabloko partyThen he founded the national movement Narod. In 2010 he started his fight against corruption and in 2013 He was among the leaders of the anti-Putin protest. In the summer of 2020 poisoned (with the nerve agent Novichock): Only an emergency transfer to Omsk saved his life. He immediately pointed the finger at Russian intelligence. On his return home after a period of convalescence, he was arrested for violating the surveillance system.