Alexei Navalny, one of the most outspoken political activists in Russia, died on February 16th while imprisoned in Northwest Siberia. He was well-known around the world for his anti-corruption activism and criticism of Vladimir Putin.
Navalny grew up in Moscow with his father, a Soviet army officer, and his mother, an economist. He also stayed with his grandparents who lived in the countryside on the outskirts of Chernobyl, Ukraine. After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion, Navalny’s family witnessed Soviet government forces try to cover up the effects of the radiation exposure by forcing the local people to grow potatoes in irradiated soil. This was one of Navalany’s earliest exposures to the adverse effects of communist rule.
Navalny went on to study law at the People’s Friendship University of Russia in Moscow in 1998 as well as economics at the Financial University. While in school, he joined Yabloko, a liberal democratic political party that supported a market economy. When Navalny joined Yabloko in 2000, the party still had some influence in the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russia’s parliament. However, once the pro-Putin parties united under the mega party known as United Russia in 2001, the little influence of smaller groups, like Yabloko, grew even slimmer. Navalny became a leader within Yabloko but was kicked out of the Party in 2007, likely due to his disagreements with party leader Grigory Yavlinksy.
Navalny’s first significant movement of dissent began in 2008 when he began purchasing small amounts of stock in various companies he believed to be embezzling money. Since he was a stakeholder, he was able to sit in on corporate meetings where he proceeded to question the executives, who were often political allies of Putin, about their accounts. Navalny’s documentation of his stakeholder activism garnered outstanding public attention, leading to then-Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, publicly acknowledging the corruption. Medvedev stated that a trillion rubles, equivalent to $31 billion, was being embezzled by the state procurement system.
Navalny continued his anti-establishment activism by launching the website, RosPil. RosPil was an online whistleblowing page that published suspicious cases of government fraud and corruption. The site drew in a million visitors each month and created a space where the public could engage in free discourse regarding the legitimacy of their leadership.
Navalny called on his followers to not support the corrupted United Russia party in the December 2011 election, which had evidence of rigging beyond a questionable doubt. Yet, the United Russia party still won, placing Vladimir Putin back in the seat of the Presidency. The rigged elections motivated the largest public demonstrations since the end of the Soviet Union, thus showing that Navalny and other dissenters were succeeding in exposing the felonious nature of the Russian government. Although the government proclaims itself as a “sovereign democracy”, the work of Navalny and others displayed to Russians that they were actually living under authoritarian rule. Soon after Putin took office, Navalny’s home was raided and Navalny himself was put under criminal investigation.
The first major move of Navalny’s political career involved his Moscow mayoral run in 2013. He ran an entirely grassroots campaign due to being barred from television programs. The day after Navalny entered the race, he was charged with embezzlement and sentenced to five years in prison – a charge that was likely politically motivated. Thanks to the anger shown by thousands of protestors, Navalny was released before he even stood trial. In the end, Sergey Sobyanin, an ally of Putin, won the mayoral race. Over the next several years, Navalny continued his anti-Putin political activism and many people rallied behind him as the 2016 election was also claimed by United Russia even though there was significant evidence of ballot stuffing and repeat voting. Putin had solidified his autocratic governance by creating veneer parties that were all meant to create a guise of a democratic government when in reality, any true opposition, such as Navalny’s Progress Party, was suppressed by being barred from contesting in elections or having media access due to politically motivated, tenuous criminal convictions of their leaders. The United Russia Party remains the single most powerful political party in Russia.
In August 2020, Navalany was on a flight from Tomsk, a city in Siberia where he had been campaigning, to Moscow when he came down with a serious illness and had to be hospitalized. His medical team discovered that he had been exposed to a nerve agent called novichok, resulting in Navalny being put in a medically induced coma in Berlin. The Kremlin denies any involvement in this attack. While in Germany, Navalny and investigative journalist, Christo Grozev, worked to identify the Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had attempted to assassinate Navalany. Navalny was even able to pose as a security official and talk to one of the agents, a call that the FSB says is falsified.
Navalny recovering in Berlin with his family after being exposed to a nerve agent. Source: The Wall Street Journal
Navalny surprised many by returning to Russia in January 2021 where he was promptly arrested and sentenced to three and a half years in prison due to failing to report to Russian prison officials while hospitalized in Germany. Although he maintained his social media presence and influence from behind bars, the Russian government has gone to great lengths to suppress his reach. For example, a Moscow court ruled in June 2021 that any group allied with Navalny would be labeled “extremist” and the government forced Apple and Google to remove a “smart voting” app that Navalny supporters created to help with election transparency. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Navalany was charged with fraud and contempt of court, resulting in a 9-year prison sentence in Russia’s IK-6 maximum-security prison in Melekhovo. At this point, Navalny was in an emaciated state and kept in solitary confinement.
Protest for Navalny’s release. Source: Foreign Policy
In December 2023, Navalny was moved to a penal colony in the Artic Circle where he spent the last weeks of his life, before passing away on February 16th, 2024. Navalny’s mother and lawyer were notified that his cause of death was “sudden death syndrome”, which is an umbrella term for unexpected health-related death, often caused by cardiac arrest. Reuters reports that Navalany’s body had signs of bruising that likely resulted from a seizure and attempts to massage his heart. BBC reports that according to Navalny’s colleague, Maria Pevchikh, Navalny was about to be freed from prison in exchange for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hitman incarcerated in Germany for manslaughter. BBC reports that the deal would have also included two US citizens imprisoned in Russia. The Kremlin has denied these statements.
In the aftermath of Navalny’s death and the recent Oscar awarded to his biopic, the impact of his life and actions have been notably apparent. Navalny was one of, if not the, most famous political prisoner in modern history. He stood for democracy and fought every day for the truth. Moreover, he represented hope to the Russian people. In a post-Soviet Russia, communism looms as a constant threat and although the USSR may no longer exist on paper, its homo-sovieticus ideology still lingers in modern-day autocratic Russia. Navalany fought this reversion for his entire political career. Although many may question his decision to return to Russia after being poisoned with a nerve agent, activists like Navalany are the reason liberal democracies exist and all other forms of governance are exposed. Many people around the globe are fighting for freedom every day in the same spirit that Navalny did. Their efforts are a reminder that freedom is difficult to attain and easy to lose. So when one does have freedom, it must be fiercely protected and never taken for granted.