Navalny's wife brings borscht on prison visit

In a selfie posted to Instagram on Thursday, Alexei Navalny's wife, Yulia, wrote about her visit to the Pokrov penal camp to visit her jailed husband over three days.

"I spent some time in prison. So cool!" she wrote.

She said they were together in a two-star style accommodation with pictures on the wall and a kitchenette.

How the visit went

Over three days in Pokrov 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Moscow, the two shared the borscht and cherries after everything she brought was inspected for drugs and contraband and she herself was strip-searched.

Yulia wrote, "Then a skinny, tanned, smiling man in a prison jumpsuit is brought in."

She added, "The loved one is there. You reach out and touch, still a little surprised that no one is trying to stop you."

Prisoners in Russia have a right to family visits, but it is up to individual guards and facilities to grant specific requests.

Yulia said, "After three days it is over, and the husband is dressed in a prison robe again and taken away."

How Navalny landed in jail

Navalny is serving two and a half years for an alleged parole violation. He was on parole in a trumped-up embezzlement case when he was poisoned with Novichok returning from Tomsk in the far east to Moscow aboard Aeroflot.

Navalny sought medical treatment in Germany, which meant he could not check in with authorities.

When he returned to Russia, he was arrested at the airport and subsequently sentenced to several years in a prison camp.

The sentence was internationally condemned as politically motivated.

This was his wife Yulia's first visit since he was jailed.

She ended her message with, "warmest greetings to everyone" from Alexei.

ar/sms (dpa, Reuters)