Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, is missing from the penal colony where he has been imprisoned and his whereabouts are unknown, his spokeswoman and other allies said, prompting concern in Washington about his condition. 

Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, hasn’t been heard from for nearly a week, his team said on X. In recent weeks he had become ill and was put on an IV by prison staff. The team said that when his lawyers asked on Monday about his whereabouts in two penal colonies in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow, where he had been recently held, they were told he wasn’t at either one.