Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died from a heart attack at a Siberian penal colony where temperatures plummet to -30C, it is claimed.
Investigators told his mother Lyudmila Navalnaya her 47-year-old son had died from sudden arrhythmic death syndrome, though this cause of death has not been independently verified.
She travelled to the brutal IK-3 Polar Wolf prison in Kharp, Siberia, on Saturday. But she was refused permission to see the body.
Last night it was claimed members of Russia's intelligence service visited the site two days before Mr Navalny's death. FSB officers disconnected and dismantled security cameras and listening devices, according to a report citing a branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
Anti-corruption campaigner Mr Navalny had been transferred to the jail in December, four months after a court sentenced him to 19 years on trumped-up "extremism" and "corruption" charges.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Munich Security Conference Vladimir Putin was a "thug" and it was "absurd" to call him the "legitimate head of a Russian state". And he added: "Putin kills whoever he wants, be it an opposition leader or anyone who seems like a target. He maintains power through corruption and violence."
And Marina Litvinenko, whose husband, the defector Alexander Litvinenko, was poisoned in London with radioactive isotope polonium 210 by Russian agents, said: "This is not just another death. We know about the first Ukraine war in 2014, we know about the Skripal poisonings in Salisbury when a British citizen was killed, then Alexei Navalny was poisoned in 2020 and arrested in 2021, and now you have full war in Ukraine.
"And this is all connected - there is one man at the heart of all of this who is responsible.
"Putin's regime will collapse sooner than people expect, and we will know the truth behind Navalny's death and that of my husband." But Putin expert Keir Giles, author of Russia's War on Everybody, urged people to manage expectations.
He said: "We cannot even know how many Russians were in sympathy with Navalny. What we do know is that it doesn't make any difference. Russia has a repressive capacity system to make sure there cannot be anything stronger than an irritating response to Navalny's death."
He said any order given by Moscow showed Russia was "back in its historical comfort zone of murdering opponents at home and abroad without qualms and without a care for international condemnation". But he said other factors could have played a part in Mr Navalny's death.
"The assumption by so many is the Russian system is smooth and efficient, and only works on the orders issued from the very top carried out promptly and without fail. It is not the case. It is hostage to misunderstanding and Russian chaos.
"A number of things could have led to Navalny's death without it necessarily involving a direct order." As tragic as Mr Navalny's death is, said Mr Giles, it did not represent the end of the last hope of opposition.
"It is simply not true Navalny was the only show in town.There are plenty of others in jail who are in as much danger."
These include journalist and opposition activistVladimir Kara-Murza, 42.
Mr Giles added: "Kara-Murza was poisoned, went back to Russia because he doesn't feel he was doing any good outside, is imprisoned and is in great danger."
Others at risk could include activist and member of the anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina, 35.
She fled Russia after being ordered to spend 21 days in a penal colony.
