On February 16th, the world was shocked when they discovered the death of Alexei Navalny, Vladmir Putin’s most prominent political adversary, due to unknown causes at the age of 47. According to a statement made by Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service, Navalny suddenly collapsed on one of his daily morning walks and the medical staff at the compound were unable to revive him. During the time of his death, he was at the Polar Wolf, a jail camp near the North Pole, after receiving a 19 year sentence that would have ended in 2031.
Throughout his life, Navalny was a stalwart advocate against Vladmir Putin. In his early career as a lawyer, he joined the Russian liberal Yabloko party in 2000, working to protect the rights of Moscow citizens against state-run corporations. During this time, Navalny worked as an anti-corruption blogger and also hosted a radio show, criticizing Putin and “lawless” construction projects. However, he was expelled from the party seven years later due to his overly nationalistic views. In 2011, Navalny founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation, with the target of encouraging Russians citizens to vote against United Russia, the ruling party of the country. Despite his efforts, United Russia still claimed a vast majority of seats in Parliament. This prompted Navalny to join 25,000 other enraged protesters, resulting in him being sentenced to 15 days in jail.
After his stint in jail, Navalny’s popularity continued to grow and he ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013, gathering 27% of the total votes, but ultimately losing to Putin. During this time, Navalny was also charged with both embezzlement and fraud which, despite both being suspended, barred Navalny from running for president in 2016. In response, Navalny encouraged all his supporters to boycott Putin’s reelection and investigate Russia’s oligarchs, leading him to be jailed once again.
In 2020, Navalny was suddenly attacked by an unknown poison, after flying back to Moscow from Siberia. Navalny was treated in Germany, where they identified poison as a Russian nerve agent called Novichok. Upon arriving back to Russia 5 months later, Navalny was arrested and sentenced to two years in a penal colony for violating the agreements of his suspended sentence. During this imprisonment, “Navalny”, a documentary about his poisoning, was released, which received critical acclaim and even won an Oscar. “My husband is in jail for telling the truth. My husband is in jail for defending democracy”, Yulia Navalnya, Navalny’s wife, said in the Oscar acceptance speech. A year later in 2023, Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison, this time for extremism.
Navalny’s death holds great ramifications for Russian politics in general. With Russia’s presidential elections coming up this month in March, many have speculated that his death was intentional, especially given his previous assassination attempt. In fact, in a speech regarding Navalny’s death, Biden claimed that his death was “a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.”
