00:00 This is Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
00:05 It's believed he was poisoned by the Kremlin back in 2020 and eventually returned to Russia.
00:10 In the summer last year, he was sentenced to three decades in prison on what are largely
00:13 regarded as sham charges, in which Russian courts found him guilty behind closed-door proceedings.
00:18 However, in November 2023, he disappeared from the prison he was being held at,
00:23 and no one knew where he went. Well, he has now resurfaced at an Arctic penal colony,
00:28 a place which is so remote, it takes three weeks to get there by train and road.
00:32 The colony is some 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. Still, the political prisoner seemed
00:38 in good spirits, even joking with the judge he was speaking to during a video call,
00:42 saying that a tear is flowing down his cheek at seeing the judge again. He also asked if his
00:47 previous prison had thrown a party when he was whisked away to this polar colony.
00:51 Still, Navalny's situation is a dire one, having been placed in solitary confinement in October
00:56 after insulting a prison guard over taking his pen away.
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