Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny dies in prison, aged 47

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is dead, the prison service of the Yamalo-Nenets region where he had been serving his sentence said on Friday.

In a statement published on its website, the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said Navalny “felt unwell” after a walk on Friday and “almost immediately lost consciousness”.

It said medical staff had been called but were unable to resuscitate him.

The cause of death was being investigated.

Navalny, 47, was a former lawyer who rose to prominence more than a decade ago by lampooning President Vladimir Putin's elite and making allegations of vast corruption.

Last month, Reuters reported he was in a jail about 60km north of the Arctic Circle and had been placed in solitary confinement for 10 days for “incorrectly introducing himself” to a guard, according to Kira Yarmysh, his spokesperson.

It was then the 25th time Navalny had been placed in solitary confinement and Yarmysh said he had spent 283 days in such conditions.

Sentenced to remain in prison until he was 74 on charges he said were trumped up to keep him out of politics, Navalny said he was also being forced to listen to a pro-Putin pop singer at 5am every morning after being played the Russian national anthem.

The Russian authorities cast Navalny as a fraudulent Western-backed extremist out to upend political stability and sow chaos in the world's largest country, which he denied.

Reuters