Vladimir Putin has struck again. Another political opponent is dead under suspicious circumstances and the Russian opposition to Putin's tyrannical rule has lost a champion.
There's no evidence that Putin was responsible for the death of Alexei Navalny, the president's fiercest critic. But Putin has been trying to kill Navalny since at least 2020, when he was dosed while in the West with a "military-grade nerve agent from the Novichok family" of weapons. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to a long prison sentence at a facility far above the Arctic Circle.
The Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny "felt unwell" after a walk. He lost consciousness almost immediately.
"All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not yield positive results. Doctors of the ambulance stated the death of the convict," the prison service said, adding that causes of death were being established.
Navalny was last seen in public on Thursday when he made an appearance on video in a court hearing. He appeared to be in good spirits, even asking the judge jokingly for part of his "huge salary" in reference to charges by the government he was being paid by Western intelligence.
His millions of followers can't believe he is gone.
Supporters of Navalny took to social media to express their disbelief. “Murder,” many wrote, but the sentiment running beneath a lot of the reactions was a loss of hope.
Despite the long prison sentences imposed on him, many Russians who oppose the government still considered him the best hope for bringing change to Russia. One woman wrote on the Telegram social messaging app: “Please tell me that everything is fine! Otherwise it’s simple...No future, no hope, nothing....”
Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s longtime chief of staff, said he doesn't believe that Navalny is dead.
“We have no reason to believe state propaganda,” Volkov wrote on the social platform X. “If this is true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died,’ but ‘Putin killed Navalny,’ and only that. But I don’t trust them one penny.”
Fair enough. But Putin has nothing to gain from lying about his biggest rival's death. Navalny is gone, and with him, hope for millions of Russians who looked to him as a champion of the anti-Putin, pro-democracy cause.
Mr. Navalny was an unflinching critic of Mr. Putin, a former K.G.B. officer whom he accused of corruptly skimming the country’s oil profits to enrich his friends and entourage in the security services. Mr. Putin’s political party, he said, was a party of “swindlers and thieves,” and he accused the president of trying to turn Russia into a “feudal state.”
Mr. Navalny was known for his innovative tactics in fighting corruption and promoting democracy. Defying expectations, he cannily used street politics and social media to build a tenacious opposition movement even after much of the independent news media in Russia was squelched and other critics were driven into exile or killed in unsolved murders.
Mr. Navalny's last message on Valentine's Day to his wife is especially poignant.
He wrote on an Instagram post that he and his wife may be separated by “blue blizzards and thousands of kilometers,” “but I feel that you are near me every second, and I keep loving you even more.”
Alexey Navalny was 47 years old.
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