Updated 12.50pm

The European Parliament on Wednesday honoured jailed Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny with its highest human rights prize. 

The anti-corruption campaigner, who last year survived a poisoning attack he blames on the Kremlin and is currently jailed in a penal colony outside Moscow,  is the 2021 winner of the parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. 

Navalny has described the prize as a "great honour but also a great responsibility." 

With Navalny jailed, his daughter Daria Navalnaya received the prize on his behalf in Strasbourg. 

Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putin's best-known domestic opponent, and Daria Navalnaya did not hold back in her acceptance speech. 

"It seems to me that the problem is that the desire to appease the dictator, again and again, to not anger him, to ignore his crimes as long as it's possible is not a pragmatic approach at all," she said.

"It's time to say it straight. Under the sign of pragmatism, there is cynicism, hypocrisy, and corruption." 

The prize-giving ceremony was followed by a press conference led by European Parliament president David Sassoli. 

People like Navalny, Sassoli said, "are showing us what it means to fight for freedom." 

"They are a source of inspiration for those who dream of a better society, in Russia and elsewhere." 

Sassoli said he looked forward to the day when Navalny would be able to visit the parliament in person. 

When announcing Navalny as the winner last October, European Parliament vice president Heidi Hautala said Navalny "has shown great courage in his attempts to restore the freedom of choice to the Russian people." 

"For many years he has fought for human rights and fundamental freedom in his country. This is costing his freedom and nearly his life," she added in a plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg.

The EP's decision to award Navalny further embittered ties between the European Union and Russia. Moscow reacted to the news by saying it "significantly devalues the meaning" of words like freedom of thought.

"We respect this body, but no one can make us respect such decisions," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, referring to the European Parliament.

Navalny's movement

Navalny, 45, was nominated but passed over for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

His movement in Russia has been banned as "extremist" by the Kremlin and some of his allies have been forced to leave Russia under pressure from authorities. 

The group, called the Anti Corruption Foundation, called the prize a victory for all supporters of "truth".

"The Sakharov Price is, of course, an award for you all. To all the people who are not indifferent, who even in the darkest of times are not afraid to speak the truth," it said on Twitter.

The European Parliament's biggest grouping, the conservative EPP group, called on Putin "to free Alexei Navalny. Europe calls for his -- and all other political prisoners' -- freedom".

- 'Strong voice' -NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg hailed the award and said it was recognition of Navalny's "important role... in supporting democratic values and being a strong voice in Russia".

He also called for Navalny's unconditional release from prison and for an international investigation of his poisoning.

Navalny, a father-of-two, has remained upbeat and still communicates with supporters from behind bars via social media accounts.

"Don't worry, I'll be released no later than spring 2051," he wrote on Instagram last month.

In winter 2011-2012, Navalny led the first mass protests against Putin's rule that attracted tens of thousands and were sparked by widespread claims of vote-rigging in parliamentary elections.

He upped the ante in 2013 by running for Moscow mayor, finishing second to a Putin ally.

The following year, he was found guilty on fraud charges in a case Europe's rights court deemed "arbitrary" and Navalny said was contrived to bar him from future elections. 

In 2018, he was barred from the vote that handed Putin his fourth presidential term.

The Sakharov Prize, set up in 1988 and named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, is awarded every year to those fighting for human rights or democracy.

Last year, the €50,000 prize went to the movement opposing President Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, a close ally of Putin.

The other finalists for the 2021 prize were a group of Afghan women who fought for women's rights in now Taliban-run Afghanistan, and Jeanine Anez, a former head of state in Bolivia who is jailed on charges of leading a coup in 2019.