Vladimir Putin’s fiercest opponent died in prison. But who was Alexei Navalny? And how did the lawyer turned opposition leader become famous?
Alexeï Navalny, leader of the opposition in the Kremlin, died in prison, Russian authorities announced Friday.
The 47-year-old was a lawyer turned blogger, YouTuber, protest organizer, anti-corruption activist and face of the Russian opposition.
In recent decades, he has become known as the fiercest opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, leading a crusade against official corruption and organizing massive protests against the Kremlin.
In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, political opponents often give way to factional disputes or go into exile after being imprisoned.
But Alexei Navalny has gone from strength to strength, rising to the top of the opposition thanks to his courage and keen understanding of how social media can circumvent the Kremlin’s grip on information in Russia.
He was born in Butyn, about forty kilometers from Moscow. He earned a law degree from People’s Friendship University in 1998 and interned at Yale in 2010.
Alexei Navalny has attracted attention by highlighting corruption within the Russian elite.
One of his first actions was to buy a stake in Russian oil and gas companies to become an activist shareholder and encourage transparency.
By focusing on corruption, Alexei Navalny’s work appealed to Russians’ widespread sense of having been deceived, and it resonated more strongly than more abstract and philosophical concerns about democratic ideals and human rights. the man.
Why was Alexei Navalny in prison?
In 2013, he was convicted of embezzlement in what he said was “politically motivated prosecutions” and sentenced to five years in prison. The prosecutor’s office subsequently requested, to everyone’s surprise, his release pending appeal.
A higher court later gave him a suspended sentence.
The day before his conviction, Alexei Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow.
The opposition saw his release as the result of large demonstrations organized in the capital to protest his conviction, but many observers attributed it to the authorities’ desire to give the mayor’s election a veneer of legitimacy.
Alexei Navalny came in second, an impressive performance against the incumbent mayor, who enjoyed the support of Vladimir Putin’s political machine and was popular for improving the capital’s infrastructure and aesthetics.
Alexei Navalny’s popularity soared after another charismatic politician, Boris Nemtsov, was shot dead on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015.
Every time Vladimir Putin spoke about Alexei Navalny, he was careful never to mention the activist’s name, calling him “that person” or other similar expressions, in an apparent effort to diminish its importance.
But he has not been spared controversy.
Even in opposition circles, Alexei Navalny has often been seen as too nationalist in his support for the rights of ethnic Russians.
ADVERTISEMENTWhile repeatedly condemning Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Alexei Navalny has also avoided committing to an unconditional return of Crimea to Ukraine, preferring to kick in with another referendum and the prospect of a negotiated settlement.
He nevertheless managed to overcome the fallout from these statements thanks to the power of investigations carried out by his Anti-Corruption Fund.
Although Russian state-controlled television channels have ignored Alexei Navalny, his investigations have resonated with young Russians through videos on YouTube and posts on his website and social media accounts.
His work has expanded from a focus on corruption to a general critique of the political system under Vladimir Putin, who ruled Russia for more than two decades.
Alexei Navalny played a central role in protests of unprecedented scale against the questionable results of national elections and the exclusion of independent candidates.
ADVERTISEMENTPoisoned in Siberia
While serving a prison sentence in 2019 for his participation in election protests, Alexei Navalny was taken to hospital for what authorities said was an allergic reaction.
Some doctors said it appeared to be poisoning.
A year later, on August 20, 2020, he fell seriously ill on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, where he was meeting with opposition candidates.
He collapsed in the aisle on his way back from the toilet and the plane made an emergency landing in the city of Omsk, where he spent two days in the hospital while his supporters begged the doctors there. authorize him to go to Germany for treatment.
Once in Germany, doctors determined he had been poisoned with a strain of Novichok – similar to the nerve agent that nearly killed former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England in 2018, and which caused the death of another woman.
ADVERTISEMENTAlexei Navalny was put in an induced coma for about two weeks, then struggled to regain speech and movement for several more weeks.
Russian authorities then stepped up, announcing that Alexei Navalny had violated the conditions of a suspended sentence in one of his embezzlement convictions while in Germany, and that he would be arrested , if he returned to his country.
But staying abroad was not in his nature. Alexei Navalny and his wife flew to Moscow on January 17, 2021. In just over two weeks, he was tried, found guilty and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
These events sparked massive protests that reached the most remote corners of Russia and saw more than 10,000 people arrested by police.
When Vladimir Putin sent troops to invade Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Alexei Navalny strongly condemned the war in social media posts from prison and during his court appearances.
ADVERTISEMENTLess than a month after the war began, he was sentenced to nine more years for embezzlement and contempt of court in a case he and his supporters said was fabricated.
Investigators immediately launched a new investigation, and in August 2023, Alexei Navalny was convicted of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison.
On Friday, after a walk around the prison, he felt unwell and lost consciousness, according to the Federal Prison Service. An ambulance arrived to try to resuscitate him, but he died. The cause of death would be “under investigation“.
