MOSCOW — Aleksei A. Navalny, the imprisoned Russian opposition chief, has been denied visits from his docs and legal professionals.
But one unlikely customer to the notoriously harsh penal colony the place he’s being held did flip up this week: Maria Butina, the one Russian to serve jail time within the United States in relation to investigations of Russian political affect operations throughout and after the 2016 election. She now works for RT, a pro-Kremlin tv channel.
According to social media posts by Ms. Butina and supporters of Mr. Navalny, the 2 had a face-to-face encounter that appeared to have been punctuated by mutual insults.
In 2018, Ms. Butina pleaded guilty within the United States to 1 cost of conspiring to behave as an unregistered overseas agent, typically known as “espionage light.” Prosecutors accused Ms. Butina of having befriended Republican Party politicians and leaders within the National Rifle Association whereas sending stories again to Russia. She served most of her 18-month sentence after which was deported.
Earlier within the week, Ms. Butina taunted Mr. Navalny in on-line posts for talking out about his deteriorating well being within the Russian jail, Penal Colony No. 2, identified by its initials IK2, within the Vladimir Region east of Moscow, implying American prisons are worse. “Are you a man?” she wrote on Wednesday.
Her go to Thursday appeared meant to ship the identical message in particular person, in accordance with the account posted by Mr. Navalny’s supporters.
“Instead of a doctor, today the miserable RT television propagandist Butina arrived, accompanied by video cameras,” mentioned Mr. Navalny’s Telegram channel. “She was yelling that this is the best and most comfortable prison.”
Mr. Navalny narrowly survived a poisoning with a navy nerve agent final 12 months and was medically evacuated to Berlin. He returned voluntarily to Russia in January and was arrested on the airport. In February, he was sentenced to greater than two years in jail.
In jail, Mr. Navalny has suffered from again and leg ache that has not been recognized, in accordance with his lawyer, who mentioned Mr. Navalny couldn’t rule out lingering results of the poisoning. Mr. Navalny has mentioned he has a herniated disk from driving in jail transport automobiles and is shedding feeling in each legs.
He has additionally suffered from sleep deprivation because the guards wake him hourly at evening as a result of he has been categorized as a flight threat, regardless of returning to Russia voluntarily to be arrested, he and his legal professionals have mentioned.
Mr. Navalny’s supporters say jail authorities are deliberately subjecting him to a drawn-out torment whereas additionally shortly tallying sufficient petty infractions, corresponding to rising 10 minutes late or carrying a T-shirt to a gathering together with his legal professionals, to ship him to a punishment block in the event that they select. It is a painful instance for different Russian dissidents to look at.
On Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany raised considerations about Mr. Navalny’s deteriorating well being throughout a three-way video convention with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The Kremlin has mentioned Mr. Navalny receives satisfactory well being care.
On Wednesday, Mr. Navalny declared a hunger strike till he’s allowed a go to with a specialist physician.
The response triggered Ms. Butina’s taunting commentary on-line that was then delivered in particular person on the jail.
“A new approach for Navalny, a hunger strike,” Ms. Butina wrote on Telegram, the messaging service, on Wednesday. “It’s as old as the world.”
She wrote that his intent was to attract consideration overseas and that others in Russian prisons had tried this earlier than. “Look what little poor ones we are,” she wrote of what starvation strikers meant to convey.
“Lyosha, are you a man or not?” she wrote, referring to Mr. Navalny by a diminutive of his first identify. “I’m tired of the complaining. He is in one of the best penal colonies in Russia.”
Ms. Butina in posts on Friday mentioned Mr. Navalny, in her view, regarded hale and hearty. She mentioned the warden instructed her Mr. Navalny was refusing medical care from jail docs.
“Navalny walks absolutely normally,” she wrote after the go to. “He doesn’t look like a person ‘not allowed to sleep,’ and I can judge from my time in prison in the U.S.A.”
In describing their encounter, Ms. Butina wrote that Mr. Navalny had been standing in a line of prisoners. When he noticed her, she wrote, he “immediately hurled insults.” She additionally wrote that she requested him: “Do you know the difference between a prison and a resort?”
Ms. Butina served a portion of her sentence on the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, Fla. In a memoir printed after her return to Russia, Ms. Butina wrote she had been horrified to fulfill transgender individuals within the penitentiary and had as soon as been despatched to solitary confinement.
Mr. Navalny’s model of the encounter with Ms. Butina, in accordance with his Telegram channel’s posting, differed on what was mentioned, however at the very least appeared constant together with her assertion that it was an insult-fueled alternate.
Mr. Navalny “for 15 minutes lectured her before a line of convicts, calling her a parasite and servant of the government of thieves,” in accordance with the posting.
Precisely how this data was obtained and posted to his Telegram channel will not be clear. Mr. Navalny has conveyed messages by way of legal professionals up to now that others put up underneath his identify.
RT, the tv channel previously often called Russia Today that Mr. Navalny’s aides mentioned had dispatched Ms. Butina to his jail, didn’t reply to a question in regards to the go to.
