MOSCOW — Pro-Kremlin media on Friday launched an offensive against jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny aiming to disprove his complaints of mistreatment and lack of medical attention at his penal colony.
On Wednesday, 44-year-old Navalny announced he had launched a hunger strike demanding proper medical treatment in prison after experiencing severe back pain and numbness in his legs.
The opposition figure is serving a 2.5-year sentence on old fraud charges in a penal colony some 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Moscow known for its harsh discipline.
The pro-Kremlin Life.ru news website on Friday published CCTV footage from what it said is Navalny’s penal colony.
Several videos showing what looks like a prison dormitory show a man strongly resembling Navalny, dressed in a dark blue uniform with a shaven head.
The videos are dated March 26, just under two weeks after he was transferred to Penal Colony No. 2 outside the town of Pokrov and a day after he publicly said his health was deteriorating.
Describing Navalny as an “impudent simulator,” Life.ru wrote that he was walking around and was disrespectful to prison authorities, although the published videos have no sound.
The website did not say how it obtained the footage.
In posts on social media, Navalny has accused prison officials of “torture” through sleep deprivation and said he lost eight kilogrammes (18 pounds) since arriving at the colony and before going on hunger strike.
On Wednesday he said the Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today) was filming at his colony.
He added that the crew was led by Maria Butina, who was convicted in the United States for illegally acting as an agent of a foreign government and served more than five months in a correctional facility before being deported back to Russia in October 2019.
Butina on Friday confirmed she was at the Pokrov colony in a post on her Telegram channel, saying Navalny “looks quite normal.”
She said the colony is “practically exemplary” and “resembles a pioneer camp,” referring to Soviet summer camps.
“My wish for Alexei is that if you have committed a crime, be a man and serve your time.”
Navalny was arrested when he returned to Russia in January from Germany, where he had spent months recovering from a near-fatal poisoning he blames on the Kremlin.
Reached by AFP, Navalny’s close ally Leonid Volkov said: “We do not comment on Kremlin infofeces.”
Pro-Kremlin media scramble to dismiss Navalny health complaints
https://arab.news/8jpyk
Pro-Kremlin media scramble to dismiss Navalny health complaints
- Pro-Kremlin Life.ru news website on Friday published CCTV footage from what it said is Navalny's penal colony
- In posts on social media, Navalny who started hunger strike on Wednesday, accused prison officials of "torture" through sleep deprivation
Semafor targets Gulf expansion after first profitable year
- Digital news brand generates $2m in earnings on $40m of revenue in 2025, and raises $30m in new financing
- Platform aims to be the ‘business and financial news brand of record for the Gulf,’ CEO says, and to ‘blanket the world’ within 2 years
DUBAI: Digital news platform Semafor generated $2 million in earnings in 2025 before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, on revenue of $40 million, marking its first year of profitability.
It also closed $30 million in new financing, which it plans to use to grow its editorial operations and live events business.
These achievements are particularly notable at a time when the global news industry is facing declining revenues and the erosion of audience trust, the company said.
Justin B. Smith, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told Arab News that Semafor’s model and approach is distinguished by several factors, which can be encapsulated by its vision of building a news product to “serve consumers that are increasingly not trusting news, but also designed with a business model that could deliver sustainable economic advantage.”
Following its first profitable year and armed with new funding, Semafor, founded in 2022, now plans an accelerated phase of global expansion with a focus on scaling editorial output and global convenings.
The company said it will broaden its publication schedule in the year ahead. Semafor Gulf and Semafor Business will become daily publications as the platform increases the frequency of its “first-read” services, which are daily briefings designed to showcase “front page” news and intended to serve as the “first read” for audiences, Smith said.
The Gulf edition of Semafor launched in September 2024, with former Dow Jones reporter Mohammed Sergie as editor. In 2025 Matthew Martin was appointed its Saudi Arabia bureau chief.
Semafor’s brand slogan is “intelligence for the new world economy” and “the Gulf is the epicenter of the new world economy,” Smith said. Currently, its Gulf operation employs eight journalists, based in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and as it moves to a daily publishing schedule it plans to significantly bolster its editorial team, both in existing markets and new ones, such as Qatar.
Semafor is “obsessed with the business, financial and economic story” in the region and aims to become “the business and financial news brand of record for the Gulf,” Smith said.
In the US, Semafor DC, currently published daily, will move to a twice-a-day format in March. In addition, the company’s flagship annual Semafor World Economy platform in Washington will expand this year from a three-day event to five days, with extended programming. The event, in April, is expected to attract more than 400 global CEOs, more than double the number that took part in 2025.
In addition to the US and the Gulf, Semafor currently operates in Africa. It held its first event in the Gulf region last month, during Abu Dhabi Finance Week, and said it is now looking to grow its events footprint across the Gulf, and into Asia. It will launch a China edition next month, its first foray into Asia, and plans to launch in Europe in 2027, followed eventually by Latin America.
Within the next two years, Semafor aims to have “blanketed the whole world” and become a mature, global intelligence and news brand competing with the “greatest legacy business and financial news brands in the world,” Smith said.
“Our goal is to become the leading global intelligence and news company for the world, founded on independent, high-quality content and convenings,” he added.
