Opinion | Where is Russian leader Alexei Navalny, and why has he disappeared?

History provides many painful examples of authoritarians who caused their perceived enemies to disappear, from Stalin’s gulag to Argentina’s dirty war and Mexican drug cartels’ violence. The disappearance of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny must be viewed with alarm under the dictatorship of President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Navalny had been serving an 11-year sentence on spurious fraud charges at a penal colony, IK-6, in the Vladimir region, about 140 miles east of Moscow. After an additional 19 years were tacked on in August, for “extremism,” he was to be moved to a nearby “special regime” prison, IK-7, known for harsher conditions. Mr. Navalny’s lawyers and staff grew alarmed when he failed to appear by video at two scheduled court hearings the week of Dec. 4. They said they have lost contact with him.

The prison at first claimed it was having electricity problems with a video feed but after six days acknowledged he was no longer in the facility, according to the Anti-Corruption Foundation that Mr. Navalny founded. Nor was he in the harsher IK-7, said his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh.

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Mr. Navalny, over the last decade and a half, became the most potent opposition challenger to Mr. Putin, campaigning against what he called Mr. Putin’s “party of crooks and thieves” and speaking out from prison against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. His group’s YouTube videos exposing elite corruption have been eye-opening. In 2020, Mr. Putin’s security services attempted to assassinate him with a military-grade nerve agent. He survived, recovered in Germany and returned to Russia in early 2021, when he was arrested and jailed on grossly unjust charges. Mr. Navalny has suffered a series of health troubles, including a fainting spell the week before he disappeared.

Mr. Putin announced on Dec. 8 that he would run for another six-year term, but it will be a farce of an election, without real opposition. Mr. Navalny and other challengers to Mr. Putin’s rule — including Post contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza — have been jailed, while others have been forced into exile.

Nonetheless, Mr. Navalny’s organization remains active. The day before Mr. Putin’s announcement, the Anticorruption Foundation put up a series of billboards in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other cities, wishing everyone a happy new year. However, the billboards contained a QR code that, when scanned, took users to a website headlined “Russia Without Putin” and urged people to vote for anyone but Mr. Putin next March. The day after the billboards went up, Moscow authorities took them down and issued instructions that QR codes were no longer permitted on billboards.

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This is a favorite technique of dictators — poof! and people disappear, billboards vanish. Mr. Putin is most certainly trying to further isolate Mr. Navalny, who has already endured months in solitary confinement. Until now, he has managed to smuggle out messages through his lawyers, who post them on social media.

Dissidents are not the only ones suffering in Russia. Mr. Putin also has seized innocent people as hostages for trading. Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained in March on spurious charges of espionage, has been held in pretrial detention in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, and his incarceration has been extended until at least Jan. 30. On Dec. 5, the State Department said Moscow rejected a “substantial” offer to free Mr. Gershkovich and fellow detainee Paul Whelan. Mr. Gershkovich is not a spy, but a reporter with a valid press accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry. This means he had formal government permission to work as an independent journalist. However, Mr. Putin does not tolerate independent journalism of any kind, and has criminalized freedom of speech in Russia. It is illegal to speak critically of the Russian military, and there are currently 844 criminal cases against antiwar dissenters.

Russia has also arrested another American journalist, Alsu Kurmasheva, of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir Service, on specious charges of failing to register as a foreign agent. On Dec. 12, Russian prosecutors launched another case against her, charging her with distribution of “fake” news about Russia’s armed forces, which comes with a punishment of up to 10 years in prison. She is to be held in custody until at least Feb. 4.

At least Mr. Gershkovich and Ms. Kurmasheva have not disappeared, for the time being. Meanwhile, where is Alexei Navalny? The world wants to know — and wants him freed.

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