Alexei Navalny, the daring and charismatic Russian opposition leader whose relentless criticism of the Kremlin stretched the country’s free-speech limits before he was poisoned and jailed, has died one month ahead of Russia’s next election, according to the country’s government. He was 47.
Navalny — a longtime thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin — fell ill after a walk on Friday and lost consciousness, the Federal Penitentiary Service said. An ambulance arrived on the scene to try to revive him, but he did not recover, the service said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been informed of Navalny’s death and that it was under investigation.
Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said the Kremlin critic’s team had not yet received any proof of his death.
The U.S. had not confirmed the death, President Biden said in the afternoon. But Biden said he had “no reason” to believe reports of Navalny’s death were incorrect, and he squarely laid the blame at the feet of “Putin and his thugs.”
“Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said in brief remarks at the White House. He did not provide a theory for how Navalny may have died.
In the fall, Navalny grew dizzy and ill in his prison cell and received an IV from prison staff, Yarmysh said. “We don’t know what it was,” she said on social media on Dec. 8, but added: “he’s not being fed, is being kept in a punishment cell with no ventilation and the time for walks has been reduced to a minimum.”
News of Navalny’s death prompted intense outcry across the globe, and came after activists long pleaded for Navalny’s release — entreaties that began more than a year before Moscow launched its bloody invasion of Ukraine. From jail, Navalny loudly opposed the invasion.
Navalny had been serving a 19-year jail sentence on charges of supporting extremism. He described himself as a political prisoner.
The reported death came with Putin up for reelection in March. Navalny, perhaps the most serious political threat to Putin’s iron grip on power in recent years, had attempted to campaign against Putin in the 2018 election, but was prevented from running.
Navalny recently urged Russians to turn out against Putin this winter. “Undoubtedly, a parody of the election procedure awaits us,” he wrote on social media. “And the end results will be fake, as usual. But any election, even the fake one, is a time of doubt. People wonder about who’s in power and why he’s there.”
“We urge everyone to be not afraid,” he added. “Our fear deprives us of our country and our future.”
Three years ago, Navalny returned to Moscow after recovering in Germany from a much-publicized and near-fatal poisoning that he blamed on the Russian regime. He was arrested upon arrival in Russia, and then sentenced to more than two years in prison.
A court ruled Navalny had violated parole, a decision that the West portrayed as politically motivated. The European Court of Human Rights asked Russia to release Navalny; Russia declined.
The Kremlin denied any role in poisoning Navalny, a social-media savvy lawyer, anti-corruption agitator and father of two. His global profile ballooned following the poisoning, and he set to work creating more headaches for Putin.
In early 2021, after he returned to Russia and was ushered into jail, Navalny’s team published a sweeping multi-format probe into a purported secret palace owned by Putin, and then marshaled large demonstrations across the country’s 11 time zones.
Navalny was born on June 4, 1976, in Butyn, a rural community west of Moscow. He grew up in the town of Obninsk and studied law at the Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow.
Before launching his anti-corruption crusade, he worked as an attorney. In 2010, he spent a semester at Yale University in Connecticut, participating in the school’s World Fellows Program.
Navalny derived political power from a punchy and adroit social media presence. His movement, particularly in recent years, united disparate groups of Russians frustrated with Putin’s two-decade-long stranglehold on power.
The plucky Navalny founded his political party, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, in 2011. He emerged from the Russian blogosphere, mobilizing an army of young followers with charm, humor, nationalist rhetoric and biting critiques of the heavy-handed Russian government.
Not long before the launch of his party, Navalny told The New Yorker: “It’s better to die standing up than live on your knees.” He staged a run for president in the nation’s 2018 election but was barred from the race. He never held public office.
“I’m sure the majority of Russian citizens would support me — and that’s why I wasn’t allowed to run,” Navalny told NPR after he was rebuffed, an audacious assertion in a country where Putin claims high approval ratings and brooks little dissent.
In July 2019, after he organized a large protest in Moscow, Navalny was diagnosed with a severe allergic reaction while in prison. He said he had never experienced allergies. Worries swirled about a possible poisoning.
“Are they such idiots to poison me in a place where suspicions point only to them?” he said in a statement from jail.
Two months later, Russian authorities swept through hundreds of homes and offices belonging to activists linked to Navalny. In a statement, Navalny said the Kremlin was “really scared.”
The next summer, he nearly died. On Aug 20, 2020, Navalny grew violently sick on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. His plane made an emergency landing in the Siberian city of Omsk, and he fell into a coma.
Germany’s leader at the time, Angela Merkel, offered her country’s help, and Navalny was moved to Berlin’s Charité hospital. The medical center requested tests that indicated he had been poisoned with Novichok, a chemical nerve agent developed by the Russian government in the 1980s and ’90s. On Sept. 7, the hospital said he had emerged from the coma.
A 2020 report published by Bellingcat, an investigative group, said Navalny was followed by Russian security officers as early as 2017, and that three operatives trailed him to Tomsk before he grew sick. Navalny told CNN that the operation could not have been conducted without “the direct order of President Putin.”
But he returned to Russia, shrugging off widespread belief that he was flying into a buzzsaw. He dismissed the notion that he would be detained as he boarded his plane from Germany.
“It’s impossible,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “I’m an innocent man.”
Uniformed cops quickly arrested him on the other side of the flight.
After court proceedings and mass protests, Navalny landed in Penal Colony No. 2, a facility known for harsh treatment of inmates.
In the spring of 2021, Navalny said a prison official had threatened to stuff him into a straitjacket to force-feed him while he was on a hunger strike. Protests briefly swept the nation. Navalny was later moved to the notoriously brutal Penal Colony No. 6.
In January 2023, Navalny grew sick, said his lawyer Vadim Kobzev, who blamed his client’s illness on exposure to a sick cellmate. Navalny had said he was struggling to sleep, kept conscious by the howls of another inmate. But he apparently recovered from the illness.
From prison, he often cracked jokes on social media, infusing criticism of the Russian authorities — whom he called scoundrels — with his trademark wit and a side of optimism.
“There are many people like me,” he said in one statement from prison, “who have nothing but a mug of water, hope and faith in their convictions.”
With News Wire Services
