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- Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was moved to a new prison above the Arctic Circle.
- Navalny was missing for nearly three weeks before a spokesperson confirmed his whereabouts.
- On Tuesday, he issued his first statement since his disappearance.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has spoken out for the first time after disappearing for nearly three weeks.
Navalny, who is a vehement critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was serving a 19-year sentence at a prison around 140 miles east of Moscow when his lawyers lost contact with him at the beginning of the month.
On Christmas Day, a spokesperson for Navalny said they had tracked him down at a new prison above the Artic Circle, known to be one of the toughest in Russia and where most inmates have committed serious crimes.
Writing on X on Tuesday, Navalny said he was "relieved" to have made it to the IK-3 prison, located in the town of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets region.
He described himself as "Santa Claus" in his comments on X.
"I now have a sheepskin coat, an ushanka hat (a fur hat with ear-covering flaps), and soon I will get valenki (a traditional Russian winter footwear). I have grown a beard for the 20 days of my transportation," he wrote.
"Unfortunately, there are no reindeer, but there are huge fluffy, and very beautiful shepherd dogs," he added.
He said that he hadn't expected to be found until mid-January and described the last 20 days of travel as "exhausting."
His comments also shed light on the conditions of his new home.
"I can't entertain you with stories about polar exotics yet because I haven't seen anything outside of the camera. And outside the camera window, I can only see the fence, which is very close," he added.
In a post on X, translated by The Wall Street Journal, Leonid Volkov — Navalny's chief of staff — said that while it's good news that he has been found alive, that is where the good news ends.
"This is the highest possible level of isolation from the world," he said, per the WSJ, referring to the prison's remote location that is extremely hard to reach.