Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that he has been returned to solitary confinement for the 15th time since he was imprisoned in 2021.
“Yesterday at 8 in the evening I was released from solitary confinement. Today at 9:30 in the morning I’m back in solitary,” read a tweet shared by Navalny’s team.
According to the Kremlin critic, the reason given for his return to solitary confinement was a failure to “submit to correctional work” and “draw the right conclusions for himself.”
“Thus, the counter for the number of days I’ve spent in solitary has jumped to 165,” he said.
Navalny is serving a nine-year prison sentence on charges he and his allies call politically motivated.
In April, Russian authorities opened as many as 10 new criminal cases against Navalny.
“I’m facing 30 years [in prison] under this case and life imprisonment under the next one,” the activist wrote at the time.
On Wednesday, the UN called on the Russian government to urgently provide Navalny with “comprehensive” medical care and warned that his repeated placement in solitary confinement could amount to torture.
“I am distressed by the deteriorating state of Mr. Navalny’s health and the apparent lack of satisfactory diagnosis and medical treatment,” said Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Navalny has been imprisoned in Russia since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow from Germany after recovering from a near-fatal poisoning with what Western scientists determined was the banned nerve agent Novichok.