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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died this week, thus reemphasising the difficulty of speaking out in Putin’s Russia.
Navalny was a Russian anti-corruption investigator and campaigner who would have been a constant thorn in Putin’s side, constantly threatening to destabilize his regime. He described Putin and his politicians as “crooks and thieves”.
With limited open criticism of Putin’s regime in Russia, Navalny’s words put his life on the line. Throughout his life, he faced numerous attacks that had the potential to be fatal, with the worst of these attacks previously being the 2020 Novichok attack, where he was deliberately poisoned and very nearly died on a flight in Siberia.
Despite these, he continued to actively oppose Putin, one of Russia’s few voices offering something different.
However, this led to him being detained for various charges, which he declared to be politically motivated, leading to him being sent to an Arctic prison for a 19-year sentence. During the three years of his sentence, his health deteriorated due to his still recovering from the Novichok incident and the poor conditions he claimed he faced within the prison.
Navalny died on the 16th of February at 14:17 local time, collapsing on a walk at his Siberian prison, never to wake up again. The official cause of death was officially ‘sudden death syndrome’. However, many are questioning the authorities, attributing his death to a far darker cause. Whether it was an immediate targeted attack or a compilation of his previous injuries, the death points towards Putin and his supporters as the culprit.
It comes after a series of deaths of those making negative comments on the Ukraine War in suspicious circumstances. First, Ravil Maganov, head of the oil company Lukoil, and then Pavel Antov, a member of Putin’s United Russia party, suspiciously fell out of windows after being critical of the war in suspected assassinations.
Putin has always made a habit of removing those who speak out against him, with Navalny only being his most recent victim. However, his death has provoked the pro-democracy movement within Russia, with at least 340 people being detained due to protesting to express their anger in Russia. This suggests the question: was the price worth the cost? His death could both rally the pro-democracy movement and lead to its end.
By Mitya Aleshkovskiy – This file was derived from: Alexey Navalny 2 (cropped).jpg, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=100162256
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