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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a penal colony last week, may have been “killed with a single punch to the heart”, according to a human rights activist.

Human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin, founder of Gulagu.net, told the Times of London, “It is an old method of the KGB’s special forces divisions.”

“They trained their operatives to kill a man with one punch in the heart, in the centre of the body. It was a hallmark of the KGB,” he further said.

The activist cited an unnamed source from the penal colony, suggesting that Navalny was deliberately exposed to subzero temperatures for an extended period before the fatal strike to weaken his body.

“I think that they first destroyed his body by keeping him out in the cold for a long time and slowing the blood circulation down to a minimum,” he told the Times of London.

Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, died after collapsing and losing consciousness at the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Arctic on February 16, according to the Russian prison service.

The Russian prison service has yet to release an official cause of death, but a death notice provided to Navalny’s family mentioned “sudden death syndrome,” a term typically associated with abrupt heart-related fatalities.

Navalny, widely recognised as Russia’s foremost opposition figure, gained prominence over a decade ago by criticising the country’s elite surrounding President Vladimir Putin and raising allegations of widespread corruption.