Aleksei A. Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader, said on Wednesday that he was being moved to a “cell-type facility” within a Russian penal colony that would likely extend his time without visits to more than a year, even as his supporters continue to raise alarms about his declining physical condition.
“Even maniacs and serial killers serving life sentences have the right to receive a visit, but I don’t,” Mr. Navalny wrote on Twitter. “Well, hardships make one tougher, though I don’t understand why this should apply to my children too.”
Mr. Navalny said that he would spend six months, the maximum possible term under Russian law, in the new facility, and that he would be denied visits, as he has for the prior eight months.
The move is an unmistakable effort to destroy Mr. Navalny’s health by any means, his lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said on Twitter on Wednesday. He accused prison officials of deliberately infecting Mr. Navalny with an illness and then administering inappropriate treatment. Mr. Navalny was experiencing sharp stomach pains and had lost over 15 pounds, Mr. Kobzev reported.
One of President Vladimir V. Putin’s most prominent critics, Mr. Navalny has been jailed since he returned to Russia in 2021, after recovering in Germany from an assassination attempt that Western officials say was carried out by the Kremlin. He has spent much of his time in prison in so-called punishment cells.
Concerns about his health have been growing in recent weeks and led to rare, public petitions from groups of Russian lawyers, doctors and lawmakers who used their full names to demand that he receive better medical care, undertaking a considerable risk of being prosecuted for their dissent.
Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, described his new facility, known as PKT, as a “concrete cage” with a bed chained to the wall. “Putin tried to kill Navalny the quick way,” she said. “Now Putin’s torturing him and killing him the slow way.”
