Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, currently serving a 19-year prison sentence, has been transferred to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. The IK-3 penal colony, located in Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 km (1200 miles) northeast of Moscow, is considered to be one of the toughest prisons in Russia. Penal colonies are descendants of Soviet-era Gulags, the notorious Stalin-era labour camps where thousands of Russians lost their lives.
For three weeks his family, allies and lawyers had no news of him. But on December 25, there finally came word from jailed Kremlin critic Navalny. He resurfaced on social media platform X with a string of sardonic posts to say he had been transferred to a prison north of the Arctic Circle.
