Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most prominent opponent, is the latest high-profile figure to stage a hunger strike in a Russian jail. Here are some other famous cases: The Soviet dissident Anatoly Marchenko died in prison in 1986 after a 117-day hunger strike demanding the release of prisoners of conscience. He was 48 when he died in a prison hospital, days after calling off his fast. Months later many were amnestied. Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov began refusing food in a Russian Arctic penal colony in 2018 where he had been sent after being convicted on terrorism charges for protesting against Russia annexing Crimea. He lost 30 kilos as he gradually stepped up his protest over 145 days only to halt it to avoid being force-fed. Sentsov was finally handed over to the Ukraine in 2019 as part of a historic prisoner swap between the two countries. Ukrainian female combat pilot Savchenko spent two years in a Russian prison, becoming a symbol of the Ukraine's resistance with a series of hunger strikes. She went without solid food on one occasion for 84 days but did take liquid nutrients. Savchenko returned to a hero's welcome to Kiev in May, 2016 as part of a prisoner swap with Russia. The frontwoman of Russian rock provocateurs Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, was arrested for performing a "punk prayer" against Putin in a cathedral near the Kremlin for less than a minute in 2012. With bandmate Maria Alyokhina she was imprisoned for nearly two years for hooliganism. Tolokonnikova protested prison conditions in a nine-day hunger strike that ended when she required medical intervention. bur-kd/jmy/fg/har