Simon Bourtembourg, edited by Laura Laplaud 10:41 am, March 15, 2023

Alexei Navalny is the Kremlin's No. 1 enemy. This opponent of Vladimir Putin has been locked up for more than two years in a 6m2 jail, which was also presented in the center of Paris on Tuesday by his supporters. Who is this man who has become the symbol of opposition to the head of the Kremlin?

A life-size replica of Alexei Navalny's isolation cell was presented on Tuesday in the center of Paris by his supporters. It is in a 6m2 jail that the Kremlin's number 1 enemy has been locked up for more than two years. The reason? Failure to comply with judicial review related to a previous conviction. Who is this man who has become the symbol of opposition to Vladimir Putin?

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The symbol of opposition to Vladimir Putin

A charismatic colossus with blue eyes, Alexei Navalny has been denouncing and documenting the large-scale corruption of Russian power for nearly 15 years. His struggle met with a certain echo in society. In 2011, he managed to gather more than 100,000 people in the streets of Moscow. Alexei Navalny remains tolerated by the government and even runs for the 2018 presidential election before being declared ineligible. Having become cumbersome, the FSB condemned him in August 2020. The opponent drinks a poisoned tea before boarding a plane. He survives, rescued urgently in Germany.

Navalny sleeps in one of the country's harshest prisons

Back in Russia, Alexei Navalny commits in 2021 the crime of lèse-majesté with the denunciation of a massive and fraudulent enrichment of Vladimir Putin himself. He was then incarcerated in March of the same year in the IK-2 prison in Pokrov, one of the harshest in the country. But in June 2022, Alexei Navalny was transferred to the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo. A high-security facility that Navalny's spokeswoman described as "monstrous", even in a country where "abuse and torture are used against detainees in many prisons".