Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny may have been killed with a punch to the heart, a human rights activist has claimed.

Navalny, who was Russian President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic, died Friday in a remote penal colony in Siberia where he was serving a three-decade prison term, the Russian prison service announced.

While an official cause of death has not been released, Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta Europe quoted an unnamed paramedic as saying that Navalny, 47, had signs of bruising when he was brought to a hospital in Salekhard, Russia.

Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the human rights group Gulagu.net, told the Times of London that an unnamed prison insider said the bruising on Navalny's head and chest was allegedly consistent with the "one-punch" technique.

Osechkin described the technique as a "hallmark of the KGB," the foreign intelligence and domestic security agency of the Soviet Union.

"It is an old method of the KGB's special forces divisions," Osechkin claimed to the outlet.

The activist alleged, "They trained their operatives to kill a man with one punch in the heart, in the center of the body. It was a hallmark of the KGB."

Before the alleged attack, the Russian opposition leader was allegedly left outside for over two hours in the subzero temperatures of the Yamalo-Nenets region, Osechkin cited the source working in the penal colony as saying.


Osechkin suggested that the alleged assailants intended to weaken Navalny and make him "easy to kill" by "keeping him out in the cold for a long time and slowing the blood circulation down to a minimum."

"And then it becomes very easy to kill someone, within seconds, if the operative has some experience in this," the activist added.

According to Osechkin, former prisoners who served time in the region allegedly witnessed other inmates being killed by guards using this method.

Navalny's death was announced Friday by the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District.

"On Feb. 16, 2024, in penal colony number 3, convict Navalny A.A. felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness," the service said in a statement obtained by Reuters. "The medical staff of the institution arrived immediately, and an ambulance team was called."

"All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not give positive results," the statement continued. "Doctors of the ambulance stated the death of the convict. The causes of death are being established."

Navalny's mother, Lyudmila, and lawyer were told that the Russian opposition leader was suspected to have died from "sudden death syndrome," according to Ivan Zhdanov, director of Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation.

"Sudden death syndrome" is a loose umbrella term for cardiac syndromes that cause sudden cardiac arrest and death.

Novaya Gazeta Europa reported, citing the paramedic with the Salekhard ambulance service, that Navalny's body was brought to the morgue at the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital following his death.


"They drove him to the morgue, brought him in, and then stationed two policemen in front of the door. They might as well have put up a sign saying, 'Something mysterious is going on here!' Of course, everyone wanted to know what had happened, what all the secrecy was about, and whether they were trying to hide something serious," the paramedic claimed.

The bruising allegedly found on his body appeared consistent with a seizure and heart massage attempts rather than beatings, according to the unidentified paramedic.

Navalny was serving a cumulative three decades in prison for a long list of charges, including alleged parole violations, fraud and inciting and financing extremism, among others.

He rejected the charges as fabricated and politically motivated.