"It is almost impossible to get to this colony; it is almost impossible to even send letters there. This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world," said Alexei Navalny's chief strategist Monday of the prison colony above the Arctic Circle where the Russian opposition leader has been transferred. But Navalny still managed to release a statement that appeared Tuesday as a series of nine posts on X that the New York Times describes as "written with a heavy dose of irony and humor" and seemingly "intended to assuage concerns ... about his health and status." They begin, "I am your new Santa Claus."
Navalny keeps the theme going when discussing his journey to the colony in Kharp, during which his whereabouts were unknown, writing, "I don't say 'Ho-ho-ho', but I do say 'Oh-oh-oh' when I look out of the window, where I can see a night, then the evening, and then the night again. The 20 days of my transportation were pretty exhausting, but I'm still in a good mood, as befits a Santa Claus."
Navalny expressed surprise that his team had managed to track him down already, writing, "I was transported with such precaution and on such a strange route (Vladimir - Moscow - Chelyabinsk - Ekaterinburg - Kirov - Vorkuta - Kharp) that I didn't expect anyone to find me here before mid-January. That's why I was very surprised when the cell door was opened yesterday with the words: 'A lawyer is here to see you.'"
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He ended with a joke: "Since I'm Santa Claus, you're probably wondering about the presents. But I am a special-regime Santa Claus, so only those who have behaved very badly get presents." Navalny is serving a 19-year sentence; Business Insider reports he had previously been at a prison roughly 140 miles from Moscow; he's now 1,200 miles north of that city. (Read all his posts here.)
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