Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny located in Siberian penal colony, spokeswoman says

(NEW YORK) — Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny has been located in a remote penal colony in Siberia after his lawyers and associates have been unable to contact him for nearly three weeks, Navalny’s spokeswoman said Monday.

Navalny was located in IK-3 in the village of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug part of Russia, which is in Siberia, the spokeswoman, Kyra Yarmysh, said Monday.

“The lawyer saw him today. Alexei is fine,” Yarmysh wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Navalny was previously being held in Correctional Facility No. 6 in the Vladimir region, about 100 miles east of Moscow.

His lawyers tried to see Navalny earlier this month at the prison in the Vladimir region but were told he’s no longer listed there, Yarmysh previously said. They had tried to find him at two other nearby prison camps and were told he wasn’t there, either, she said Dec. 11.

The Kremlin had claimed it didn’t know where Navalny was currently held and said it had no intention of looking into his status.

Navalny, a lawyer-turned-politician, has been in jail since 2021 upon returning to Russia after recovering in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. In 2022, a Russian judge added another nine years to Navalny’s sentence of 2 1/2 years for embezzlement and other charges.

Earlier this year, Navalny’s team sounded the alarm over his deteriorating health while in solitary confinement, saying he has not received any treatment. They said he has been repeatedly put in solitary confinement for two-week stints for months.

ABC News’ Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.

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