"No illusions"

London punishes Navalny’s brutal prison boss

The "Polar Wolf" penal colony in Charp, where Navalny died.

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

The UK imposes sanctions against the head of the Russian prison camp IK-3, where Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny died. The head of the camp beyond the Arctic Circle, known as the "Polar Wolf", Vadim Kalinin, and five other officers are no longer allowed to enter the UK. Any property in the UK will be frozen, as the Foreign Office in London announced on Wednesday.

"Those responsible for Navalny's brutal treatment should be under no illusions: We will hold them to account," said British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

The authority emphasized that Navalny had been "imprisoned and killed" in the camp. Kalinin was in charge of the "brutal" prison camp, where Navalny was held in solitary confinement for up to two weeks at a time. The opposition politician's condition had steadily deteriorated during his three-year detention. Navalny suffered from the fact that he was denied medical treatment. He was also forced to walk around the yard in temperatures of minus 32 degrees Celsius.

Cameron wants to confront Lavrov with aggression
The UK called on Russia to return Navalny's body to his relatives immediately. Cameron announced that he would directly confront Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about Russia's aggression and its global impact at the G20 foreign ministers' meeting, which was to take place on the same day in Brazil.

Navalny died on Friday while walking in the yard
According to the authorities, 47-year-old Navalny collapsed last Friday while walking in the yard of the prison camp. Resuscitation attempts by prison officers were in vain, it was reported. Navalny was weakened by a poison attack in 2020 and repeated solitary confinement in the camp. The UK had already imposed sanctions on several Russian citizens as a result of the attack.