Navalny's wife and allies sound growing alarm over his health in jail

FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen on screens via a video link from the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov during a court hearing to consider an appeal against his prison sentence in Moscow, Russia May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File Photo

(Reuters) - The wife of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appealed to prison staff to provide him with basic medicines on Wednesday as his supporters warned with increasing urgency that his life was in danger.

Navalny's allies said the 46-year-old was placed in a cramped punishment cell for 15 days on Dec. 31, the 10th time he had been sent there in the space of five months for misdemeanours such as washing his face at the wrong time or failing to button up his prison uniform.