Poisoning and the penal colony. This is how Alexei Navalny has changed over the years

Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin's foremost political adversary, was allegedly poisoned, then imprisoned, and eventually sent to the Polar Wolf penal colony, one of Russia's harshest correctional facilities. Known for its notorious reputation, the Polar Wolf colony is deemed virtually impossible to escape from.

Navalny's ordeal began in August 2020 when he was hospitalized in Omsk after collapsing aboard a plane from Siberia to Moscow. Following his family's plea, he was later transferred to a hospital in Germany.

According to German authorities, Navalny was targeted with a chemical agent belonging to the Novichok group while in Russia. Despite undergoing treatment and rehabilitation, Navalny made the decision to return to Russia, where he was promptly arrested at Moscow's airport in early 2021.

Subsequently, Russian courts initiated additional criminal proceedings against him, resulting in a cumulative prison sentence of 30 years. Throughout this period, Navalny remained incarcerated. Initially detained in European Russia, he was later transferred to penal colony No. 3 in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug towards the end of the previous year.

The Polar Wolf penal colony, located in the Far North, stands as one of Russia's most severe penitentiaries. In February of this year, Navalny was placed in solitary confinement within its walls.

Housing approximately a thousand of Russia's most dangerous criminals, the prison accommodates individuals convicted of crimes such as murder, rape, pedophilia, and other offenses carrying sentences exceeding 20 years under the Russian Criminal Code.

Polar Wolf penal colony 

Situated near the Arctic Circle, some 1,900 kilometers northeast of Moscow, the facility occupies the site where the Gulag, a notorious forced labor camp for criminals and political dissidents, was established in the 1960s.

Conditions within the Polar Wolf colony are exceptionally harsh, earning it a reputation as an escape-proof institution. Consequently, prisoners who have previously attempted to flee from other facilities and were subsequently apprehended often find themselves incarcerated within its confines. Surrounded by vast expanses of tundra on one side and the imposing Ural Mountains on the other, the Polar Wolf prison presents formidable barriers to escape.