Alexei Navalny, galvanizing opposition leader and Putin’s fiercest foe, died in prison, Russia says
By JIM HEINTZ The Associated Press,Updated February 16, 2024, 5:20 p.m.
President Biden, Alexei Navalny's wife, blame Putin for the death of the Russian Opposition Leader
President Biden and Yulia Navalny spoke Friday regarding the death of Russian Opposition Leader, Alexei Navalny. (Olivia Yarvis/Globe Staff)
Alexei
Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive
anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died
Friday in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year
sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.
The
stunning news — less than a month before an election that will give
Putin another six years in power — brought renewed criticism and outrage
from world leaders toward the Russian president who has suppressed
opposition at home.
After
initially allowing people to lay flowers at monuments to victims of
Soviet-era repressions in several Russian cities, police sealed off some
of the areas and started making arrests.
More
than 100 people were detained in eight cities, including Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don
in the south of Russia, according to the OVD-Info monitoring group.
Shouts of “Shame!” were heard as Moscow police rounded up more than a
dozen people — including one with a sign reading “Killer” — near a
memorial to political prisoners, the group said.
But
there was no indication Navalny’s death would spark large protests,
with the opposition fractured and now without its “guiding star,” as an
associate put it.
Russia’s
Federal Penitentiary Service reported Navalny felt sick after a walk
Friday and lost consciousness at the penal colony in the town of Kharp,
in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles)
northeast of Moscow. An ambulance arrived, but he couldn’t be revived;
the cause of death is “being established,” it said.
Navalny
had been jailed since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow to face
certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning
he blamed on the Kremlin. He was later convicted three times, saying
each case was politically motivated.
After
the last verdict, Navalny said he understood he was “serving a life
sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of
life of this regime.”
Hours
after his death was reported, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, made a
dramatic appearance at a security conference in Germany where many
leaders had gathered.
She
said she had considered canceling, “but then I thought what Alexei
would do in my place. And I’m sure he would be here,” adding that she
was unsure if she could believe the news from official Russian sources.
“But
if this is true, I want Putin and everyone around Putin, Putin’s
friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for
what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband. And this
day will come very soon,” Navalnaya said.
Praise
for Navalny’s bravery poured in from Western leaders and others
opposing Putin. Navalny’s health has deteriorated recently and the cause
of death may never be known, but many of them said they held Russian
authorities ultimately responsible — particularly after the deaths of
many Kremlin foes.
Yulia Navalnaya just gave a moving speech at #MSC2024
. She is tough as nails. However long it takes, She and all those
Russians who believe in freedom will prevail. On that, I have no doubt pic.twitter.com/pwVJTalJwB
U.S.
President Joe Biden said Washington doesn’t know exactly what happened,
“but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of
something Putin and his thugs did.”
Navalny
“could have lived safely in exile” but returned home despite knowing he
could be imprisoned or killed “because he believed so deeply in his
country, in Russia.”
In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Navalny “has probably now paid for this courage with his life.”
Standing
beside Scholz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — whose country
is fending off Russia’s invasion — said: “Putin doesn’t care who dies in
order for him to hold onto his position.”
Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin was told of Navalny’s death. The
opposition leader’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on X, formerly known
as Twitter, that the team had no confirmation yet.
Russia’s
main state TV channel interrupted its newscast to announce the death,
while other broadcasters carried only terse reports.
The
Russian SOTA social media channel shared video of Navalny — reportedly
in a prison courtroom on Thursday — laughing and joking with the judge
via video link on one of several hearings about conditions in jail.
Navalny
was moved in December from a central Russia penal colony to the
“special regime” facility — the maximum security level. His allies
decried the transfer to the remote Arctic colony as yet another attempt
to isolate and silence Navalny.
Before
his arrest, Navalny campaigned against official corruption, organized
major anti-Kremlin protests and ran for public office.
In
Putin’s Russia, political activists often faded amid factional disputes
or went into exile after imprisonment, suspected poisonings or other
repression. But Navalny grew consistently stronger and reached the apex
of the opposition through grit, bravado and an acute understanding of
how social media could circumvent the Kremlin’s suffocation of
independent news outlets.
He
faced each setback — whether a physical assault or imprisonment — with
intense devotion and sardonic wit. When authorities put Navalny in a
tiny cell because of minor infractions — allowing access to a narrow
exercise yard only in the early morning — he joked: “Few things are as
refreshing as a walk in Yamal at 6:30 in the morning.”
Navalny
ally Lyubov Sobol told The Associated Press that Russia’s repressive
climate makes any rallies over his death risky, and “people could get
long prison terms for taking part in a peaceful protest.”
In
the absence of a “guiding star” like Navalny, she said, “people will
have an even greater fear of repressions, seeing the government’s
impunity.”
A
woman laying flowers for Navalny at a Moscow memorial said he was “the
last beacon of hope for anything to change, and that hope died today. So
the only thing I want to do now is cry, I have no more words.” She
identified herself only by her first name, Elmira, for fear of
repression.
Navalny
was born in Butyn, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside Moscow. He
received a law degree from People’s Friendship University in 1998 and
did a fellowship at Yale in 2010.
He
gained attention by focusing on corruption in Russia’s murky mix of
politicians and businesses; one of his early moves was buying a stake in
oil and gas companies to become an activist shareholder and push for
transparency.
His
work had pocketbook appeal to Russians’ widespread sense of being
cheated, carrying stronger resonance than abstract concerns about
democracy and human rights.
He
was convicted in 2013 of embezzlement on what he called a politically
motivated prosecution and was sentenced to five years in prison, but the
prosecutor’s office surprisingly demanded his release pending appeal. A
higher court later gave him a suspended sentence.
A
day before the sentence, Navalny registered as a candidate for Moscow
mayor. The opposition saw his release as the result of large protests
over his sentence, but many observers attributed it to a desire by
authorities to add a tinge of legitimacy to the race.
Navalny
finished second, an impressive performance against an incumbent who was
backed by Putin’s political machine and was popular for improving
Moscow’s infrastructure.
Navalny’s
acclaim increased after the leading charismatic politician, Boris
Nemtsov, was shot and killed in 2015 on a bridge near the Kremlin.
Whenever
Putin spoke about Navalny, he made it a point to never utter his name,
referring to him as “that person” or similar wording, in an apparent
effort to diminish his importance.
In
opposition circles, Navalny was often viewed as having an overly
nationalist streak for supporting the rights of ethnic Russians — he
backed the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Moscow in 2014
although most nations viewed it as illegal — but he was able to mostly
override those reservations via investigations conducted by his Fund for
Fighting Corruption.
Although
state-controlled TV ignored Navalny, his investigations resonated with
younger Russians via YouTube and posts on his website and social media
accounts. The strategy helped him reach the hinterlands far from the
political and cultural centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg and
establish a strong network of regional offices.
His
work broadened from focusing on corruption to criticism of the
political system under Putin. He was a galvanizing figure in protests of
unprecedented size against dubious national election results and the
exclusion of independent candidates.
Navalny
got attention using pithy phrases and a potent image. His description
of Putin’s power-base United Russia as “the party of crooks and thieves”
gained instant popularity.
In
2017, after an assailant threw green-hued disinfectant in his face,
seriously damaging an eye, Navalny joked that people were comparing him
to the superhero the Hulk.
Much worse was to come.
While
in jail in 2019 for an election protest, he was hospitalized for what
authorities called an allergic reaction, but some doctors said it
appeared to be poisoning.
A
year later, he fell severely ill on a flight to Moscow from the
Siberian city of Tomsk. The plane made an emergency landing in the city
of Omsk, where he spent two days in a hospital before being flown to
Germany for treatment.
Doctors
there determined he had been poisoned with a strain of Novichok –
similar to the nerve agent that nearly killed former Russian spy Sergei
Skripal in 2018. Navalny was in a medically induced coma for about two
weeks.
The
Kremlin vehemently denied it was behind the poisoning, but Navalny
challenged that with an audacious move: releasing the recording of a
call he said he made to an alleged member of the Federal Security
Service, or FSB, who purportedly carried out the poisoning and then
tried to cover it up. The FSB called the recording a fake.
Russian
authorities then announced that while in Germany, Navalny had violated
the terms of a suspended sentence in one of his convictions and that he
would be arrested if he returned home.
Navalny
and his wife nevertheless flew to Moscow on Jan. 17, 2021. On arrival,
he told waiting journalists he was pleased to be back, walked to
passport control and into custody.
Last month, he explained why he returned, saying: “I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs.”
Just
over two weeks after his return, he was tried, convicted and sentenced
to 2½ years in prison. That sparked massive protests reaching to
Russia’s farthest corners and saw police detain over 10,000 people.
As
part of a massive opposition crackdown that followed, a Moscow court in
2021 outlawed Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and about 40
regional offices as extremist, a verdict that exposed members of his
team to prosecution.
When
Putin sent troops to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Navalny strongly
condemned it in social media posts from prison and during his court
hearings.
Less
than a month after the war began, he received another nine-year term
for embezzlement and contempt of court in a case he said was fabricated.
Last August, he was convicted of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in
prison.
When
a film called “Navalny” about his story won an Academy Award for best
documentary in 2023, his wife told the ceremony: “My husband is in
prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for
defending democracy. Alexei, I am dreaming of the day you will be free
and our country will be free.”
Besides his wife, he is survived by a son and a daughter.
Produced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.
Alexei Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021. Right before he boarded the plane, he posted a film
titled “Putin’s Palace: The Story of the World’s Largest Bribe” on
YouTube. The video, nearly two hours long, was an extraordinary feat of
investigative reporting. Using secret plans, drone footage, 3-D
visualizations, and the testimony of construction workers, Navalny’s
video told the story of a hideous $1.3 billion Black Sea villa
containing every luxury that a dictator could imagine: a hookah bar, a
hockey rink, a helipad, a vineyard, an oyster farm, a church. The video
also described the eye-watering costs and the financial trickery that
had gone into the construction of the palace on behalf of its true
owner, Vladimir Putin.
But
the power of the film was not just in the pictures, or even in the
descriptions of money spent. The power was in the style, the humor, and
the Hollywood-level professionalism of the film, much of which was
imparted by Navalny himself. This was his extraordinary gift: He could
take the dry facts of kleptocracy—the numbers and statistics that
usually bog down even the best financial journalists—and make them
entertaining. On-screen, he was just an ordinary Russian, sometimes
shocked by the scale of the graft, sometimes mocking the bad taste. He
seemed real to other ordinary Russians, and he told stories that had
relevance to their lives. You have bad roads and poor health care, he told Russians, because they have hockey rinks and hookah bars.
And Russians listened. A poll conducted in Russia a month after the video appeared revealed that one in four Russians had seen it. Another 40 percent
had heard about it. It’s safe to guess that in the three years that
have elapsed since then, those numbers have risen. To date, that video
has been viewed 129 million times.
Navalny
is now presumed dead. The Russian prison system has said he collapsed
after months of ill health. Perhaps he was murdered more directly, but
the details don’t matter: The Russian state killed him. Putin killed
him—because of his political success, because of his ability to reach
people with the truth, and because of his talent for breaking through
the fog of propaganda that now blinds his countrymen, and some of ours
as well.
He
is also dead because he returned to Russia from exile in 2021, having
already been poisoned twice, knowing he would be arrested. By doing so
he turned himself from an ordinary Russian into something else: a model
of what civic courage can look like, in a country that has very little
of it. Not only did he tell the truth, but he wanted to do so inside
Russia, where Russians could hear him. This is what I wrote at the time: “If Navalny is showing his countrymen how to be courageous, Putin wants to show them that courage is useless.”
That
Putin still feared Navalny was clear in December, when the regime moved
him to a distant arctic prison to stop him from communicating with his
friends and his family. He had been in touch with many people; I have
seen some of his prison messages, sent secretly via lawyers, policemen,
and guards, just as Gulag prisoners once sent messages in Stalin’s
Soviet Union. He remained the spirit behind the Anti-Corruption
Foundation, a team of Russian exiles who continue to investigate Russian
corruption and tell the truth to Russians, even from abroad. (I have
served on the foundation’s advisory board.) Earlier this week, before
his alleged collapse, he sent a Valentine’s Day message to his wife, Yulia, on Telegram: “I feel that you are there every second, and I love you more and more.”
Navalny’s
decision to return to Russia and go to jail inspired respect even among
people who didn’t like him, didn’t agree with him, or found fault with
him. He was also a model for other dissidents in other violent
autocracies around the world. Only minutes after his death was
announced, I spoke with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian
opposition leader. “We are worried for our people too,” she told me. If
Putin can kill Navalny with impunity, then dictators elsewhere might
feel empowered to kill other brave people.
The
enormous contrast between Navalny’s civic courage and the corruption of
Putin’s regime will remain. Putin is fighting a bloody, lawless,
unnecessary war, in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians
have been killed or wounded, for no reason other than to serve his own
egotistical vision. He is running a cowardly, micromanaged reelection
campaign, one in which all real opponents are eliminated and the only
candidate who gets airtime is himself. Instead of facing real questions
or challenges, he meets tame propagandists such as Tucker Carlson, to
whom he offers nothing more than lengthy, circular, and completely false
versions of history.
Even
behind bars Navalny was a real threat to Putin, because he was living
proof that courage is possible, that truth exists, that Russia could be a
different kind of country. For a dictator who survives thanks to lies
and violence, that kind of challenge was intolerable. Now Putin will be
forced to fight against Navalny’s memory, and that is a battle he will
never win.
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