Where is the Polar Wolf Arctic Penal Colony? The former Soviet gulag where Alexei Navalny reportedly passed away

Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and political prisoner, reportedly died in an Arctic Circle maximum-security prison in the Yamalo-Nenets region on February 16, 2024. He was moved to one of Russia's toughest jails, the Polar Wolf Arctic penal colony late last year.

As per BBC, he was held at The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, which is nicknamed "Polar Wolf". The prison revealed that the politician "felt unwell" after he went on a walk and "almost immediately lost consciousness." They reportedly tried to resuscitate him without success.

An official cause of death has not yet been revealed by prison authorities.

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Alexei Navalny was 47 at the time of his death

Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison on extremism charges, which meant he would have been released in December 2038. Born in 1976, he was 47 when he died.

The Federal Penitentiary Service is located in Yamalo-Nenets region, well above the Arctic Circle. The conditions for living in the maximum security prison were extremely harsh. As per USA Today, the jail has a culture of collective punishment and the average winter temperature there is -20 degrees Celsius.

Alexei Navalny was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most high-profile critics. He was imprisoned upon his return to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had life-saving treatment for alleged nerve agent poisoning. It is unclear who tried to poison him, although Navalny blamed the attack on the Kremlin, as per The Independent.

The activist had reported that he experienced debilitating back pains and numbness in his legs back in 2021. He also revealed that there were intrusive hourly night inspections that effectively deprived the prisoners of uninterrupted sleep for several weeks, as per Sky News.

The Polar Wolf Arctic penal colony's administration allegedly refused to provide him with adequate healthcare or even share his medical records.

As per the BBC, in January 2023, Alexei Navalny spoke about allegedly being placed in a cell with another prisoner who seemingly had mental health issues and yelled "for 14 hours during the day and three hours at night." The BBC further reported that Navalny was made to share a cell with someone who had tuberculosis, prompting hundreds of Russian doctors to sign an open letter demanding that he be seen by a doctor for treatment.

The opposition leader was also placed in solitary confinement for 10 days for “incorrectly introducing himself” to a guard, as per The Independent.

Alexei Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, blamed the Kremlin and called for justice after the news of his death was made public. She addressed an audience at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, expressing her apprehension about the news given that it had come from the Russian government. As per Reuters, she continued:

"We cannot trust Putin and the Putin government. They always lie. But if this is true, I want Putin, his entire entourage, Putin's friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband. And this day will come very soon."

Yulia revealed that she was unable to decide whether to remain in Munich or fly to see her children. The couple has a 23-year-old daughter, Daria, and a teenage son, Zakhar, as per The Washington Post.