Free Alexei Navalny from his Polar Wolf prison colony hell

Years of repeated incarceration in increasingly harsh prison conditions have failed to break Alexei Navalny. He has kept up an unceasing campaign against Vladimir Putin’s autocratic rule from behind bars, remaining the president’s most prominent opponent inside Russia.

For three weeks this month, there was silence from him. He could not be found by his legal team, family and friends despite an exhaustive search through the penal system. Officials across the country, from Mr Putin’s spokesman to prison authorities in both Moscow and far-flung provinces, claimed they did not know his whereabouts.

But as his supporters grew increasingly worried, the 47-year-old made a sudden reappearance from the brutal IK-3 penal colony in the Arctic Circle, known as Polar Wolf, 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow.

In a series of deeply ironic messages from his X account, Mr Navalny insisted he was fine, compared himself to Santa Claus and described the “beautiful fluffy sheepdogs” watching guard. No pictures of him have been seen in his new place of imprisonment.

Over 20 days, he said he had been where he described how he was beaten “from all sides with a truncheon” on arrival.