Russian President Vladimir Putin has been informed of Navalny’s death, according to Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Peskov also said on Friday that Russia’s penitentiary service was making “all checks” regarding Navalny’s death but that he had no other information about the matter.
Navalny has been in jail since 2021, and in December he was moved to an arctic penal colony in Siberia.
Charges against Navalny, one of Vladimir Putin’s most vociferous critics, are widely seen as politically motivated.
He was originally sentenced to three-and-a-half-years for violating the conditions of a suspended sentence in an embezzlement case.
In February 2022, he was put on trial again. This time it was alleged he stole $4.7m (£3.5m) of donations given to his political organisations.
“You’re going to increase my term indefinitely. What can we do about it?” Navalny said during the court hearing.
- News Analysis: NCISM’s New 75% Attendance Rule for BAMS Courses
- PM Modi inaugurates Sudarshan Setu, India’s longest cable-stayed bridge
- Narendra Modi said – “For the sake of development, not just enjoying power, a third term is needed. He told the workers – ‘Save the country from the Congress.’”
He was found guilty, and ordered to spend nine years in a “strict regime penal colony”.
And in August last year, this jail term was extended to 19 years after he was found guilty of founding and funding an extremist organization – charges he has denied.
In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné says that Navalny “paid with his life” for his “resistance to Russian oppression”.
“His death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime,” he adds.
-reports Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny dead, says prison service