This archive report was first published on 25 December 2019.
On December 23, 2019, Ruslan Shaveddinov, a 23-year-old project manager at Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, went missing after authorities broke into his Moscow flat and disabled his phone's SIM card.
According to Navalny, Shaveddinov resurfaced at a secret air defence base on the remote Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean on December 24, 2019.
"He has been unlawfully deprived of freedom," President Vladimir Putin's top opponent said in a blog post, calling Shaveddinov a "political prisoner".
The Russian military claimed that Shaveddinov had been dodging the draft for a long time, but Navalny disputed this, stating that his project manager had a medical condition that disqualifies him for military service.
Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh, who is Shaveddinov's partner, said the project manager had recently acted as a contact person for opposition lawmakers in Moscow city parliament.
"Perhaps this is the reason this has happened," Yarmysh told AFP.
Navalny accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and commander-in-chief Putin of being directly responsible for what he claimed was an act of "kidnapping".
