Navalny: From Poisoning To Prison Colony

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been sent to a Russian penal colony six months after being poisoned in a nerve agent attack he blames on President Vladimir Putin

Moscow, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Feb, 2021 ) :Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been sent to a Russian penal colony six months after being poisoned in a nerve agent attack he blames on President Vladimir Putin.

Here is a timeline: - Sent in coma to Berlin - The 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner is hospitalised on August 20, 2020 in Omsk, Siberia, after losing consciousness on a flight.

Put into a medically induced coma, he is transferred two days later to a hospital in Berlin at his family's request.

- Novichok - Berlin says on September 2 that tests carried out by a German army laboratory yielded "unequivocal evidence" that he was poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era chemical weapon.

The European Union and NATO demand an investigation.

- Kremlin denial - Two days later the Kremlin rejects claims that it was behind the poisoning.

On September 7 Navalny emerges from the coma.

- Labs confirm poisoning - Laboratories in France and Sweden confirm Germany's findings that Novichok was used.

Putin condemns "unsubstantiated" accusations.

- Putin accused - Navalny accuses Putin of being behind his poisoning after he is discharged from hospital on September 22.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov calls his claims "groundless and unacceptable".

- Spooks stung - Navalny releases a recording in October of him tricking a Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agent into confessing that he tried to kill him.

The FSB describes the phone call as a "provocation".

- Defiant return - Navalny says he plans to return home despite a threat of jail.

He is arrested and detained on January 17 shortly after landing in Moscow.

But Navalny urges Russians to "take to the streets".

- 'Putin's palace' - As he is carted away, Navalny releases a video of his investigation into a lavish Black Sea property he claims is owned by Putin.

It goes viral as Putin denies it is his.

The authorities round up Navalny's allies.

- Protests and prison - In late January tens of thousands of demonstrators demand Navalny's release.

Police detain thousands.

On February 2 Navalny is handed a near three-year prison term.

The West calls for his immediate release.

He urges his supporters to liberate Russia from a "handful of thieves".

- Diplomatic crisis - As EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell visits Moscow on February 5, the Kremlin expels German, Swedish and Polish diplomats for supporting Navalny.

The three countries expel Russian diplomats in return.

- Rights court weighs in - The European Court of Human Rights orders Russia to release Navalny "with immediate effect" on February 17. Russia accuses the court of "interference".

- Appeal denied - Three days later a Moscow court dismisses Navalny's appeal, slightly reducing the sentence to two-and-a-half years.

Separately he is convicted of defamation and fined 850,000 rubles (around 9,500 Euros).

The EU imposes sanctions on February 22 on four senior Russian officials.

- Penal colony -The head of Russia's prison service says Friday that Navalny has been transferred to a penal colony to serve his sentence but does not say where.