Jailed Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny has been declared missing by his lawyers and allies just days after Vladimir Putin announced he would run for a fifth presidential term next year.
Mr Navalny, 47, who is serving a 19-year-term on charges of extremism, was due to appear in court on Monday via videolink but did not show up, his spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said.
His lawyers said they have not been able to contact him since last Tuesday and that his whereabouts are now unknown.
The Russian opposition figure has been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned from Germany having recovered from a nerve agent poisoning attempt that he blamed on the Kremlin.
My most tankie opinion: Gorbachev wasn’t really that bad by comparison.
Gorbachev was a realist who saw the start of the USSR crumbling and falling behind, and acted. He’s cursed for the reforms and presiding over the collapse, but rolling tanks into Eastern Europe circa 1989 wasnt going to have the same effect as Hungary in ‘56. The empire was dying, and he sought to protect what was most important - historic Russia and the Muscovy rule.