The most well-known member of the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny, passed away at the age of 47 in a distant Russian prison.
The Federal Penitentiary Service in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, which is located above the Arctic Circle, announced Navalny’s passing on Friday.
Navalny “felt unwell” following a walk in the jail yard, according to a statement from the prison administration, and he quickly lost consciousness. Emergency medical personnel’s attempts to revive him “failed to give positive results.”
Due to his years of criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny was serving a lengthy prison sentence for a variety of offenses, including extremism.
Putin has been notified about Navalny’s passing, according to Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin. He stated the reason of death is being investigated by jail medical staff.
Reactions from all over the world quickly came in. Navalny’s “death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built,” according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. This is Russia’s fault.”
Navalny refers to Putin as a “naked, thieving king” at a court hearing.
There have long been worries about Navalny’s security and well-being while there.
According to his family and supporters, Navalny was forced to lengthy and harsh periods of solitary confinement by officials, who allegedly did this to keep him from accessing outside resources and to continually deny him medical care. It was believed in April by a representative of his Anti-Corruption Foundation in Washington, D.C., that Navalny was progressively being poisoned while incarcerated.
However, a video from Russia’s independent SOTA news agency seems to capture Navalny appearing happy and healthy during a court appearance the day before he passed away. Navalny took part through a video transmission.
Serving a 19-year prison term for charges of extremism, embezzlement, and fraud, Navalny’s sentencing was widely perceived as a form of retaliation by the Kremlin for his political involvement.
Over the course of more than ten years, Navalny, a fierce opponent of President Putin, gained widespread support for his campaigns, which channeled public fury over corruption at the highest levels of government and advanced the idea that Russians could one day live differently.
He opposed Putin’s increasingly oppressive leadership and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine even from his prison cell.
In fact, the opposition leader revealed plans to mobilize Russians against Putin in the run-up to the March presidential elections in the days leading up to his disappearance in December.
A fresh voice of protest
On June 4, 1976, Navalny was born in a village outside of Moscow.
Putin forbids Navalny from running for office and pursues politics in other ways
Originally trained as a lawyer, he gained notoriety by trying to incite shareholder uprisings at Russia’s embattled state enterprises.
Later, he became the anti-government protesters’ breakout political hero. A strong orator, he famously denounced the 2011 parliamentary elections as “the party of crooks and thieves” in order to criticize the faulty process.
Putin’s subsequent crackdown on demonstrators demonstrated his will to maintain control over Russian politics, even as the Kremlin managed varying degrees of political rivalry.
Despite fending off an embezzlement conviction generally perceived as a Kremlin tactic to undermine his influence with voters, Navalny was permitted to run for mayor of Moscow in 2013. Yet, he came in second, almost sending the contest into a runoff with the candidate personally selected by the Kremlin, all thanks to an enthusiastic street campaign.
When Navalny attempted to run against Putin for the presidency in 2018, the Kremlin took fewer chances. Despite a court ruling that disqualified him, Navalny continued with his covert campaign, opening offices around the country and outlining his political platform.t
In an interview at the time, Navalny told NPR, “I want to live in a normal country and refuse to accept any talk about Russia being doomed to be a bad, poor, or servile country.”
“I want to live here, and I can’t tolerate the injustice that for many people has become routine.”
As opposed to Putin
Even from the political sidelines, Navalny’s relaxed manner, refined by a sense of humor fed by the internet, stood in sharp contrast to Putin’s haughty demeanor.
During his lectures, Navalny would frequently interject lines from his favorite television shows, such as Rick and Morty the animated series or The Wire on HBO.
In videos, his go-to greeting was “Hey, it’s Navalny!” before he would criticize Putin.
It was a hint of what set the two men apart, and it was also, as Navalny’s followers contended, a threat. Even if Navalny was barred from running for office.
Putin appealed to the long-standing frustrations of Russians regarding the dissolution of the USSR. Russian optimism that the country might overcome its oppressive Soviet history was channeled by Navalny into a new generation.
In a well-known attempt to minimize Navalny’s notoriety, Putin forbade him from speaking in public. Navalny parodied this move for his Instagram account, calling it “Aforementioned person, This gentleman, this other politician, and many activists characters that were brought up.”
Putin used word salads to avoid saying Navalny’s name aloud in any of the statements.
However, Navalny’s opponents extended beyond the Kremlin. Early in his political career, he participated in Russian nationalist groups on several occasions, claiming that the opposition needed their help to succeed.
Some liberals in Russia never did forgive him. The official media called him a “fascist.”
Making Use of Social Media
Navalny, who was banned from appearing on Russian national television, became an expert at using social media, especially YouTube, to spread his political message.
When Navalny established the Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2011, he brought together a group of skilled Russians who looked for proof of graft among Russia’s most influential people using public records and, on occasion, the black web.
Navalny oversaw probes that exposed ministers for excessive spending much above their disclosed earnings and, in one case, for using official aircraft to transport their corgis to dog shows.
His most well-known movie was a two-hour production released in 2021 that allowed spectators to enter a hidden Black Sea castle that Navalny said Putin had constructed at a cost of more than $1 billion.
When the movie’s viewership reached over 100 million, an oligarch with ties to the Kremlin came forward to claim he had purchased the property as an investment.
Navalny’s fan base was expanding. However, he was also opposed by the Russian elite’s elite.
Dangers and Novichok
Navalny spearheaded several national demonstrations against Putin and Kremlin favoritism over the years. He was arrested numerous times, as were his followers; in 2011 alone, he was taken into custody fifteen times.
However, as Navalny’s popularity increased, especially among younger Russians, so did the dangers to his safety.
He was exposed to a chemical substance by an attacker in May 2017 to the point where he almost lost sight in one eye.
Then, on a journey from Siberia to Moscow in August 2020, Navalny passed out. Later, as he was being treated in a coma in Germany, medical professionals discovered that he had blood traces of the Soviet nerve toxin Novichok.
Over the course of several months, Navalny recovered and collaborated with reporters to look into the attack, creating yet another sensation.
One of the would-be assassins was fooled by Navalny into admitting that he had been ordered by a Russian security service team to apply poison to Navalny’s underwear.
According to Navalny, it could only have occurred under President Putin’s direction.
The accusation was categorically denied by the Kremlin, which insisted that the strike was improvised.
As Navalny recovered in a foreign hospital, the government reopened an earlier fraud case against him, claiming he had broken his parole.
It seems that the intention behind the move was to keep Navalny in exile. Still, Navalny was determined to go back to Russia.
critic till the very end
When Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021, he was jailed right away, which sparked yet another round of rallies around the nation.
After a trial in which Navalny famously called Putin “Vladimir the Poisoner of Underpants” and said that his imprisonment was meant to scare the public, he was promptly sentenced to 2 1/2 years for parole violations.
“Millions and hundreds of thousands of people cannot be imprisoned. Throughout the trial, Navalny expressed, “I sincerely hope that people will increasingly realize this.”
“And once they do — and such a moment will come — this whole thing will fall to pieces because you can’t lock up the whole country.”
In 2022, a second fraud trial resulted in the addition of a nine-year concurrent sentence.
While this was going on, officials began dismantling Navalny’s political network, designating the Anti-Corruption Foundation and its participants as “extremist.” Many associates were taken into custody. The remainder escaped overseas or went into hiding.
However, Navalny continued to be active in politics even after being imprisoned.
His predicament is still receiving attention on a global scale: in 2021, he was given a major European human rights prize, and this year, a documentary about him named Navalny took home an Oscar.
In February 2022, Navalny constantly denounced Putin as a lunatic leading a “stupid war” that he would ultimately lose as Russia began its offensive against Ukraine.
“We must save our tired, wretched Motherland. Marking his second year in jail, Navalny said on social media in January, “It has been pillaged, wounded, dragged into an aggressive war, and turned into a prison run by the most unscrupulous and deceitful scoundrels.”
Despite the possibility of being arrested, he urged his supporters to oppose the invasion because he continued to believe that if enough Russians were prepared to speak out against it, then things would change.
It was among the most recent reminders of Navalny’s dream for his nation, which was both straightforward and obstinately unattainable in a time of fear and repression.
What Navalny referred to as “the happy Russia of the future.”
The following people survive Navalny: his wife, Yulia Navalnaya; son Zakhar; brother, Oleg; and daughter, Daria.