Russia’s most significant opposition leader and President Vladimir Putin’s critic has died in an Arctic Circle jail at the age of 47.

Russia’s most significant opposition leader and President Vladimir Putin’s critic has died in an Arctic Circle jail at the age of 47.

According to the Russian prison service, he collapsed and died on Friday, February 16, after a walk at the “Polar Wolf” Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade jail term.

The prison service in the Yamalo-Nenets district said Navalny had “felt unwell” after a walk on Friday.

He had “almost immediately lost consciousness”, it said in a statement, adding that an emergency medical team had immediately been called and tried to resuscitate him but without success.

“The emergency doctors declared the prisoner dead. Cause of death is being established.”

The 47-year-old was last seen via video link during a court hearing on Thursday.

Dressed in a black prison uniform, he appeared to be in good spirits. ‘Your Honour, I will send you my personal account number so that you can use your huge salary as a federal judge to ‘warm up’ my personal account because I am running out of money,’ he said.

Russian opposition leader and President Putin

Navalny’s mother Lyudmila said she had seen her son in the prison colony on Monday. At the time, she said: ‘He was alive, healthy, cheerful.’

But the Federal Prison Service said in a statement today that Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to save him, to no avail.

Speaking in Munich just hours after the news broke, his devastated wife Yulia Navalnaya defiantly told a crowd that Putin and his regime should be held personally responsible for ‘what they are doing to Russia.’

Holding back tears, she added that she was not yet sure if her family could believe the news and called upon the international community to come together and fight against the ‘horrific regime’ in Russia.