Alexey Navalny, the unofficial leader of Russia’s opposition, collapsed and died on February 16, when he was effectively serving an indefinite sentence for opposing the regime of Vladimir Putin.
Navalny, a 47-year-old lawyer, had been brutally treated at the K-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. He had exposed the regime’s corruption in a series of well-crafted and researched films posted on the internet, including one detailing Putin’s lavish palace on the Black Sea that was watched millions of times.
He was imprisoned in 2021, the moment he returned to Russia from a German hospital where he was treated for poisoning by suspected state assassins. Navalny later phoned one of his attackers and extracted a taped confession.
The world is shocked by the news of Alexey Navalny’s death in a remote Russian Arctic penal colony. We, his team, are shocked as well. The Russian authorities have stated that the cause of Navalny’s death will be determined by medical professionals, but I deeply doubt that any medical professional in Russia would dare to conduct an independent examination.
I would like to specifically note that Navalny did not suffer from thromboembolism. He was absolutely healthy before being poisoned with Novichok, after which he also managed to recover his health thanks to the assistance of doctors from the renowned German clinic, Charité.
Needless to say how much Navalny did for the people of Russia. His contribution to building a democratic movement is truly immense. Navalny always believed in Russia and our people — so much that he returned home after his poisoning in 2021, ending up in torturous conditions in a Russian colony. Even there, he managed to maintain composure, keep up the good spirits and remain optimistic. In recent months, he looked emaciated as he had been tormented by lack of proper food and repeatedly placed in solitary confinement. But he never gave up. That was always his main message: do not give up, do not be afraid; there are many of us, and we will win.
In the dark and frightening times we’re living, Navalny was a guiding star, and he remains one. He has already gone down in the history of our people as a hero. It is up to those he leaves behind to make his life have meaning and significance. For that, we need Putin’s regime to come to an end, and we should not be afraid to say this publicly.
I was always impressed by Alexey Navalny’s charisma, his courage and his determination to change Russia peacefully. Some people blamed him for some imagined grandeur, but he always listened to every person in his big team, including temporary consultants like me, and indeed every person he met during his trips across Russia.
By taking his life, the Russian authorities are systematically destroying any remaining shreds of hope for a moderate outcome for political normalization. This is another point of non-return.
The Russian regime has become radical in its dealings with the outside world and even more radical and totalitarian inside the country.
I cannot imagine any positive scenario now. The first step to any better future for the country is for outside powers to stop it by force. Even then, Russia risks a descent into domestic violence and civil war, regardless of the outcome of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.
Navalny’s death has not been confirmed by his team but it is all too likely that he is the latest victim of what is in effect extra-judicial execution. His last posting on X mocked his captors for putting him — once again — in a punishment cell.
He was already in a penal colony regarded as one of the harshest in Russia.
The murder is a sign of strength but also of weakness. It shows that the brutal power of the Russian mafia state can overcome the fierce willpower of even the most determined individual.
But it also shows that the Kremlin is terrified of any opposition. It cannot accept even a puppet rival to Vladimir Putin in the upcoming election (a word that hardly stretches to the staged political event taking place next month.) Not could it accept even a flicker of defiance from a remote prison cell from where Navalny continued to mock Putin and his regime.
Navalny was the most prominent person in the diminished ranks of the Russian opposition. Many will want to express their condolences to his widow Yulia, and to his exiled allies and colleagues, many of them based in the Lithuanian capital.
A full political assessment of his career, with its spectacular exposés of Kremlin corruption, his dalliance with the Russian nationalist fringe, his rapprochement with Russian liberals, and the lasting skepticism he encountered from Ukrainians and others, is for another day.
The outside world should expose those involved in his death and subject them to the most stringent personal sanctions — including visa restrictions, as well as financial and criminal measures.
But even more important is to remember that the most effective opposition to Vladimir Putin is not the fragmented, grieving remains of the political spectrum inside Russia. It is the armed forces of Ukraine.
It’s somewhat fitting that news of the ultimate murder of Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny arrived in our email inboxes just minutes after a New York Times morning newsletter entitled “A Failure of Sanctions.”
While the report focused on the many loopholes and supply chain reorientations that Putin’s Kremlin has exploited to stave off the worst effects of post-2022 Western sanctions, the same headline could certainly apply to Navalny’s death.
Recall that the 2020 assassination attempt on Navalny by poisoning via the weapons-grade nerve agent Novichok spurred debate on the need to finally “get tough” on Putin’s Kremlin.
Similar calls had followed Russia’s initial 2014 invasion of Ukraine, the 2018 Skripal poisoning in the UK, and the 2021 Tiergarten extrajudicial murder. Instead, Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
No amount of shaming of Germany’s government or Gazprom‘s five Western hydrocarbon investment partners was enough to make them apply their lofty human rights policies and corporate governance standards.
Western policymakers — especially those gathered at the Munich Security Conference this weekend — have to ensure these errors of the past are truly rectified. Arm Ukraine to win, and ensure that sanctions are heavily enforced. It’s truly the least we can do.
The news came as a terrible shock here at the Munich Security Conference. Widely seen as timed to impress the international community gathered here, it was nonetheless unexpected. His wife, Yulia, is in Munich and has spoken about the announcement. It was uncertain whether that would now take place.
Navalny's father confirmed the death of his son, Russian media report.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 16, 2024
Yulia Navalnaya, Aleksey Navalny's wife, spoke during the Munich Security Conference:
"I want to call on the entire international community, everyone in this room, people around the world, to unite… https://t.co/ULLF4pJP05 pic.twitter.com/sr9HwlT8SJ
Navalny had the power to make people care about what was happening, people who otherwise would not have noticed or known. That was his unique strength. Putin was scared enough of that ability to have him killed.
Navalny’s death underlines how scared Putin is of his own people, traditionally the greatest weakness of autocrats. Meanwhile, Ukraine loses critical territory against the Russian invaders. If people don’t see and feel the urgency for decisive support for Ukraine now, when will they?
Of course, Navalny is dead. Putin had wanted this for a long time, so there is sadness at the news, but no surprise.
Even so, we should all read the telegram it sends. Killing him, or letting him die in prison, is Putin’s signal that he will do what he wants, when he wants, to whomever he can reach. He dares us to stop him. Will we?
It goes without saying that the post-Stalin USSR (almost) never did this to dissidents. They shot spies and traitors, but not political dissidents. Even removed former leaders like Khrushchev were safe.
So we are back to the Stalin playbook. Mess with the boss and you may get poisoned, fall out a window, or have an untimely accident. Or be sent north of the Arctic Circle to die in a prison camp.
Navalny was no saint, but he was charismatic and talented, and therefore a threat who had to be eliminated. I am afraid that the message is also that the only way to get Putin out is through his physical elimination. Which he well knows.
The death of Navalny in prison, whether of natural causes or not, sends a chilling signal to thousands of political prisoners in Belarus. Some of them, like Mikalai Statkevich or Maria Kolesnikova, have not been heard of or seen for months. Vadzim Khrasko was killed by neglect last month, having developed pneumonia while held at a prison camp
Human rights defenders expressed concerns about their wellbeing, sometimes even questioning whether they were still alive, which was also reflected in the December 2023 resolution by the European Parliament.
While the attention of the world will be paid to the outstanding figure of Alexey Navalny and his decades of political struggle against Vladimir Putin, the fate of the Belarusian political prisoners must also be on the global political agenda in order to save lives that can still be saved.
Navalny’s death is a sign that Putin feels emboldened by feelings of complete impunity and a license to kill.
The timing is not a coincidence either: this happened just ahead of the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and next month’s “elections” in Russia. It is clearly yet another attempt to intimidate the population inside Russia, but also those of a nervous disposition in the West.
Once again, Putin escalates when faced with weakness and indecisiveness rather than a resolve. The West needs to take an initiative in its approach to Russia otherwise this behavior will only be encouraged.
Let’s not pretend, and it is uncomfortable to hear. The Tucker Carlson interview sealed Alexei Navalny’s fate.
You have to think like a dictator. Putin thinks the Americans invited me to sit for two hours to tell my heroic story as the anointed leader of a great people who have built a great civilization. There was no doubting his animus for Navalny, who not only opposed him but mocked him. Every day of the opposition leader’s life was an affront.
The Russian dictator’s thoughts don’t need to be rational, sane, or humane. When Putin kills his only viable opponent, whom he has jailed, just before the Potemkin elections, you have to ask yourself what made him so bold. Just like that — in front of the whole world.
Navalny is not the first opponent to fall victim to Putin’s increasingly bloody regime and he won’t be the last.
The roll call is long and growing — Sergei Magnitsky, Boris Nemtsov, Denis Voronenkov, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Anna Politkovskaya, and those whose end was uncertain, like Boris Berezovsky. The names of all those who have fallen from windows or decided to end their life in mysterious circumstances are much, much longer.
Some perceived Navalny as a leader of the anti-Putin opposition, others as a nationalist with a history of questionable remarks about Ukraine. Being anti-regime does not always mean being pro-democratic.
However, he made a bold choice to return and now the expected has happened. The death of anyone imprisoned for political reasons is a tragedy. And yet it is another reminder for wishful thinkers that any rapid reintegration of Russia into the civilized world will be impossible for years to come.
Navalny’s death signifies four key points.
Firstly, it underscores the heightened paranoia within the Putin regime, contradicting the facade of confidence projected by the Kremlin. Putin’s evident fear of his critics, even when they are held in high-security prisons and isolated from the general population, reveals the regime’s deep-seated insecurities.
Secondly, Navalny’s demise starkly reminds us of Russia’s systematic repression of dissent. The Kremlin has employed any means necessary to silence him, reflecting a broader pattern of suppressing opposition voices.
Thirdly, his death epitomizes ongoing human rights abuses in Russia, including the denial of due process, instances of torture, and inadequate access to medical care for detainees.
Lastly, Navalny’s passing underscores Russia’s glaring lack of adherence to the rule of law. It is highly unlikely that there will be a thorough investigation or any form of accountability regarding his death, further eroding trust in the country’s legal institutions.
The murder of Alexey Navalny is only the continuation of a long litany of crimes: Anna Politkovskaia, Natalia Estemirova, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov, Boris Nemtsov and hundreds of others have paid with their lives for denouncing Putin’s crimes over the past 24 years.
They have challenged a regime founded on crime and have received the criminal response of murder.
Western leaders have not wanted to hear this, just as they have turned a blind eye to the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Russian regime’s barbarity in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine, many African countries, and even on European Union (EU) soil.
Let me repeat once again — until our democracies act decisively to ensure Russia’s absolute defeat, radically and definitively in Ukraine, and then elsewhere, Putin will continue his endless series of massacres at home and abroad.
Our thoughts today are with Yulia Navalny, their children and their family. And with the many other Russian dissidents held in squalid conditions, subjected to daily torture, and whose death Putin seeks.
In particular, I am thinking of my friend Vladimir Kara-Murza. Russia’s defeat will also be for them, for the promise of freedom and the hope of life. But time is running out.
Alexey Navalny has become one more victim of Putin’s regime, yet regrettably, he will not be the last.
Once again, Russia stands as a regime where individuals are imprisoned, tortured, and even murdered purely due to their political convictions. Those who dare to pose inconvenient questions about Putin’s regime and kleptocracy, or advocate for the well-being and a decent life in Russia face severe consequences.
This grim reality prompts us to reflect on the numerous other Russian citizens currently imprisoned for simply expressing their moral values. The suffering experienced by Alexey Navalny acts as a deeply moving and emotionally poignant reminder of the ongoing challenges faced by those striving for a more open and just society in Russia.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis.
