February 16, 2024 - 4:30pm
The district in which Alexei Navalny was imprisoned has announced his death. A short statement said that the Russian dissident had “felt unwell” following a walk, after which he “almost immediately lost consciousness”. An emergency medical team tried and failed to resuscitate him.
News of his death broke as strategic leaders and thinkers converged in Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference. “Whatever story they tell,” Kamala Harris said during the opening hours of the conference, “Let us be clear: Russia is responsible.” Another notable Munich attendee is Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya. “I want Putin, his entire entourage, Putin’s friends, and his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband,” she stated upon making an impromptu speech following the news. “And this day will come very soon.”
Navalny was undoubtedly a brave man. The Russian state first tried to imprison him in 2012, charging (and convicting) him for a timber embezzling operation. Staff soon discovered a camera hidden in his office, pointing directly to his desk. He took it on the chin. “This is a war,” he told one reporter. “I also want to take away everything these guys have. So why be surprised that they want to take everything from me?” State observation — and persecution — would only increase.
In 2013, Navalny ran for Mayor of Moscow, winning 27% of the vote. A few months later, mass protests against Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych spooked the Kremlin further. One former Putin bodyguard publicly announced that he would turn Navalny “into a juicy slab of meat”.
Navalny’s investigations into corruption and crime within Putin’s Russia took guts: he once managed to get one of his would-be assassins to confess to lining his underwear with Novichok. His investigation into a vast, mysterious chateau on the Black Sea coast revealed the complex structure of ownership carefully designed to mask the true owner, costs, and sources of funding for the palace — all of which came back to the Russian President.
In 2020, Navalny suffered the state’s wrath, falling into a coma after being poisoned with Novichok onboard a Siberian flight. Having recovered after several months of treatment in Germany, he decided to fly back to Moscow. Boarding his plane, Navalny was greeted by dozens of fellow passengers recording his every movement and celebrating him as a hero. He would no doubt have realised that his chances of ever being able to leave again were slim.
Navalny — who sought to liberalise the Russian political system through criticism of the government — was nevertheless not a liberal by the standards of the West. He allied himself with ultranationalist Russians, and in 2007 called for the deportation of migrants. In Russia he was cast as a far-Right activist, even a fascist. For some commentators, Navalny had the potential to become Russia’s Aung San Suu Kyi.
His death appears to be the latest in a long line of transparent political assassinations committed by the Kremlin both inside and out of Russia. Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said today that Putin “should be held accountable for the death of Alexei Navalny”. How could this manifest? The most obvious recourse would be to extend sanctions against further Russian individuals. This will have some impact, but is unlikely to be significant: Moscow has been very careful to maintain and protect its industry and economy, even on a war footing for two years.
With recent Nato-critical rhetoric from the current Republican frontrunner for the US presidency, those in the West who wish to punish Russia for the death of its most significant and effective critic will have to carefully judge how this might be done. More, they’ll have to figure out who is willing to do it.
Katherine Bayford is a doctoral researcher in politics and international relations at the University of Nottingham.
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SubscribeHe could have had a comfortable life abroad, jetting to conferences, meeting international politicians and achieving nothing. Now he will forever stand, in the way Claus von Stauffenberg and Sophie Scholl do, as a demonstration that Putin is not Russia, and that some Russians can and have repudiated the acts of depravity carried out in their name. As with Germany, the redemption of the nation can start from there.
Aye. The final years of his foreshortened life were hard. Yet we should all reserve a certain admiration for such courageous individuals, though we cannot or will not go down such a treacherous path ourselves.
Navalny was such a truly strong man, in direct contrast to a tyrannical strongman like Putin. He wasn’t perfect, but it’s hard to imagine anyone denying his bravery. In that way, he embodied what I consider the better aspects of the Russian/Slavic spirit. I hope his legacy reminds people of what Russia could have been – and still can be – with someone better than Putin in charge. In the long run, may this be what Navalny is remembered for, accomplishing exactly what Putin fears most – showcasing the viable alternatives to his rule.
His courage such a contrast to Putin, sniffling in the Kremlin hiding from Covid.
Putin was visibly shaken by that audacious rogue Prighozin too. (Not that I’m pretending he had nothing to fear).
Indeed. A man of true physical and moral courage, with a lack of personal caution that was heroic, but also a prelude to a form of martyrdom. I agree that Navalny “showcases” or illuminates another, better way, but in a Russian context it is the steep and thorny path of the dedicated rebel. Few will follow. But a few can be enough.
Glad to see your screenname again, Ms. Clementine.
What a dreadful piece of snide and cowardly writing this is. Shame on the editor for letting this through and into your publication.
I joined 2 months ago, I am thinking of unsubbing. The content has taken a dive recently.
Goodbye.
Hang in here. In amidst the chaff, there are occasional pieces of wheat!
Malcolm Webb – I don’t understand. Why is it snide? Why cowardly? Can you elaborate any further? (I’m just trying to understand the reasoning behind the statement).
Let’s punish Russia by shooting ourselves in the foot! That will show’em!
Maybe someone will write an article about who benefits by the killing of Navalny.
Putin of course. It’s the Mafia showing how ruthless they will be and demonstrating that resistance is futile and will always end in failure and death. . Under the Communists Russia was a world of lies – no one dare speak or live the truth less it offended the leadership. The same is sadly becoming true again in “ modern” Russia. I feel so very sorry for the Russian people. Navalny’s death is a further example of despotic power at work. Totalitarianism usually operates this way and Russia seems incapable of escaping it. The official lie here will probably be that Westerners killed him to stir up things – and millions of terrified Russians will repeat it – many of them knowing it to be untrue but all having to accept it publicly as the truth.
This has a CIA op written all over it…
Certainly seems possible. Putin having Navalny in jail, incomunicado and with little chance of threatening Putin again seems to have little to benefit from Navalny’s death.
We know CIA made a plan to assassinate Assange and the death of Navalny has definitely given the Western elite lots to crow about and an excuse to firm up on Ukraine.
The timing is a bit suspicious. Just after Putin openly declared that he is available for peace talks and just in time for the Munich Security Conference. Support for the war was dwindling in the West, now voices in favour of sanctions and “for holding Putin accountable” grow louder. Cui bono?
Idiots can be downright tiresome
Really? Putin benefits by killing a well-known opponent just before the big election?!
The fourth paragraph from the end was a tipping point for me. A clear attempt to sully the guys name though hearsay and innuendo . The implication that no one will press the case against Putin for fear of consequences was as mother and general snear at Navalny throughout the short piece on the day of his murder struck me as an intended insult.
How so?
On the day I learned of the death (state murder) of a courageous man I found this hastily written article disrespectful and off hand in its tone. Maybe I should have just stopped reading it, but I didn’t and it offended me. When a martyr to a significant cause is killed I think it better that folk almost certainly of lesser stature at least show some respect and not volunteer their personal thoughts on his shortcomings.
Yes he was a Russian nationalist, pan slavist and anti liberal. That made him the best hope for Russia’s future, because he was not ‘tainted’ with the liberal reformers of the early 1990s. Putin should have made him his heir.
This article is largely a slapdash overview. Not therefore worthless, but a little too deadline dependent, I think.
I anticipate more substantive efforts here in the next few days. The more substance, the likelier to excite the polar fringe and generate chum for the trolls. But there’s usually enough intelligent, good-faith comment here to keep me tuned or returning before long.
I ain’t never heard of no herd like the UnHerd. I say that with a combination of fondness and dismay. Might renew my expiring subscription after all.
Did somebody already mention Gonzalo Lira ?
Nobody cares…
Is it no longer possible to be a hero without in every way following the “liberal” agenda?
By the way, Aung San Suu Kyi was and remains a hero.
The liberal bourgeoisie keeps Fascism in reserve for when it might ever face any serious demand to share its economic or social power with anyone who did not have it before the rise of the bourgeois liberal order, or to share its cultural or political power with anyone at all.