Alexey Navalny: Imprisoned Putin critic’s health deteriorating, daughter tells CNN

[ad_1]

(CNN) The daughter of imprisoned Russian opponent Alexey Navalny says her father’s health is deteriorating.

Speaking to CNN’s Jim Acosta at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner on Saturday, Dasha Navalnaya described the situation as “incredibly difficult.”

“He is doing as well as he can in a Russian prison which does not offer the best conditions,” she said.

“Her prison guards are taking her food away,” she added. “His health is deteriorating and we are doing everything we can to get him the attention he needs.”

Opposition figure Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, is currently serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security prison east of Moscow.

Earlier this week he said on Twitter that he was facing a new “terrorism case” – separate from the current charges against him – which could mean decades more in prison. He was also told that the case would be heard by a military tribunal.

His life and activism were the subject of an award-winning CNN film which chronicles the investigation into a brazen assassination against him.

In 2020 he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok – an act he and Western officials have blamed on the Kremlin.

After a five-month stint in Germany recovering from Novichok poisoning, Navalny returned to Moscow in 2021 and was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed in a 2014 case.

Dasha Navalnaya said it was important for her to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner because “America as a country represents free speech, free political speech.”

“That’s what my dad and the Anti-Corruption Foundation are fighting for,” she said.

Asked by Acosta about her thoughts on the imprisonment of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in a Russian prison, Navalnya said it “was no surprise”.

“I’m so sorry for his family and that he can’t be home with his kids and stuck in a Russian prison,” she said.

“We want freedom of election, we want freedom for all political prisoners, especially Alexey Navalny, my father, and foreign journalists,” she said.

[ad_2]