According to his staff, the most renowned opponent of Vladimir Putin will be imprisoned until the year 2056.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, 46, is presently serving a nine-year prison term on fabricated embezzlement allegations. A fresh set of charges are being prepared against him.
Putin’s main domestic challenger is pro-democracy activist Navalny, who the tyrant is said to despise so much for his caustic sense of humor that he won’t even say his name.
If Russian authorities succeed in prosecuting Navalny on terrorism charges- considered by the West to be entirely fabricated- then he could end up serving a maximum sentence of 35 years.
A conviction would see Navalny imprisoned until 2056- at which point he would be 80 years old and Putin would’ve turned 104.
It is believed Putin’s real intention is to have Navalny assassinated in prison, after Russia’s FSB agency failed to kill him in 2020 by lacing his underwear with the poisonous nerve agent Novichok.
At the very least, the goal is to ensure Navalny remains imprisoned for as long as Putin remains in power.
Navalny is currently suffering a mystery stomach ailment, and is refused medical help.
Members of his team believe the opposition leader is being slowly poisoned.
‘No-one knows the cause of his stomach ache,’ said his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh.
‘He has never had this before.
‘And precisely this makes us suspect that perhaps he is being poisoned all this time, with small doses, so that he dies slowly and painfully, but attracting less attention.’
Navalny currently resides in a high-security ‘torture prison’ notorious for brutal beatings and the systematic rape of male prisoners.
This week he was kneed in the groin by one of Putin’s prison warden thugs, his lawyer Vadim Kobzev has claimed.
The move was part of a provocation against Navalny when a ‘stinking’ homeless man was assigned to the politician’s cell.
Navalny tried to escort the man out of the cell but he was accused of attacking him- and will face a charge over the incident which could add up to five years to his jail tariff.
‘Navalny, who did not offer any resistance, received a knee blow to the groin,’ said the lawyer.
Prison guards had previously been accused of forcing the politician to share a jail cell with ‘flu patients’, in an attempt to make him fall ill.
Yarmysh said there are now ten criminal cases against Navalny, as the authorities seek to hide him from Putin forever.
‘By law, a person can receive no more than 35 years in prison,’ she said.
‘Based on the previous nine criminal cases, Alexei has already accumulated 35 years. A new case will not add anything in terms of time.’
‘Navalny’s defence is outraged by such a blatant, brazen and cynical provocation,’ said Kobzev over the latest ‘provocation’ against Navalny involving the stinking homeless man.
‘We demand an immediate response from the leadership of the [prison service] and the Prosecutor’s Office.’
He accused Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalova of siding with the authorities and ignoring an advance warning that such a scenario would be staged against Navalny.
The latest Navalny incident in his jail in Vladimir region comes in the week dual Russian-British citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza – was sentenced to a draconian 25 years in jail for ‘treason’ and opposing Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Britain condemned the sentence as ‘politically motivated’.
Navalny labelled the move as ‘fascist’.
A Russian judge this week also turned down a bail plea by Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, a US citizen, who was arrested on charges of espionage for which he faces up to 20 years in prison.
Navalny has said he wants to set Russia on a democratic path, and claims he would defeat Putin in a fair election.