Kremlin critic pays for the fight against Putin with his life: this is how Navalny became Russia’s public enemy number 1

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Alexei Navalny (†47), the fiercest critic of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin (71), died on Friday in ‘penal colony number 3’ after a walk, the prison management reports. Navalny’s team has not yet confirmed his death. His good friend Vladimir Ashhurkov (51) also told Blick: “We have no confirmation of Navalny’s death yet.” Therefore, he does not wish to comment further at this time.

The first voices are already describing the activist’s death as a political murder – personally ordered by Putin. But how did Navalny go from blogger and politician to the biggest enemy of the Russian state?

The former lawyer Navalny only really became known for blogs in which he exposed, in his opinion, widespread corruption among the Russian elite. It was clear to him: Russia is ruled by “crooks and thieves”.

He remained a thorn in the Kremlin’s side for years, including a Black Sea palace built for Putin’s personal use, villas and yachts used by former President Dmitry Medvedev, and a sex worker who married a top foreign policy official, well-known oligarchs.

In March, June and October 7, 2017 – Putin’s birthday – he organized nationwide anti-corruption and anti-government protests involving tens of thousands of people.

In the 2000s he took part in nationalist marches in Russia. In 2007 he was expelled from the liberal opposition party Yabloko. The reason: his calls for immigration restrictions and what some consider overly nationalistic views.

From 2009 to 2013, he took part, also as a speaker, in Russian marches, some of which were classified as right-wing extremist. He later partially distanced himself, describing himself as a “nationalist democrat.” However, he simply reformulated the already circulated right-wing extremist slogans as sounding less radical, without actually changing their content.

The pinnacle of his political career came in 2013, when he received 27 percent of the vote in Moscow’s mayoral elections that few considered free or fair. Since November 2013, he has been chairman of the small party Russia of the Future.

In December 2016, he announced his candidacy for the 2018 Russian presidential election. On December 25, 2017, the Central Election Commission of Russia declared his candidacy ineligible. He then called on his supporters to boycott the presidential elections.

When demonstrations against Putin flared in December 2011 following elections marred by allegations of fraud, he was one of the first protest leaders to be arrested. It was the first of dozens of arrests to follow.

In July 2013, Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison in an embezzlement trial. This sentence was suspended in October 2013. Following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in February 2016, the Russian Supreme Court suspended the ruling. The trial resumed and in February 2017 he was sentenced again to five years in prison with probation.

In 2020, Navalny fell into a coma after allegedly being poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok by the Russian security service FSB and was evacuated to Germany for treatment. After recovering, he returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was arrested for violating his probation and sentenced to his first of several prison terms, totaling more than 30 years behind bars.

In early December 2023, he disappeared from a prison in the Vladimir region, northeast of Moscow. “We are very concerned,” Vladimir Ashurkov, Navalny’s close friend and longtime ally, told Blick by phone at the time. Three weeks later it became clear: he was transferred from the IK-6 penal camp in Melechowo near Vladimir to the IK-3 penal camp, also known as the ‘Polar Wolf’, north of the Arctic Circle.

IK-3 has always functioned as a colony for “particularly dangerous repeat offenders,” writes the independent Moscow Times. Former IK-3 prisoners report physical and psychological cruelty. There is also a lack of clothing; in some cases only a pair of winter boots and a worn suit are given away. Some prisoners were locked in cells without daylight or hot water. Some accuse prison guards of torture.

Now the Russian state appears to have achieved what it had already tried to achieve with the 2020 poison attack: Alexei Navalny is dead. “In penal colony No. 3, convict Navalny AA began to feel bad after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness. ”, reports the prison service.

“The facility’s medical staff responded immediately and an ambulance was requested. All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but did not yield a positive result. The doctors in the ambulance declared the convict dead. The cause of death is under investigation,” the statement said.

Navalny’s team has not yet confirmed his death. “The Federal Penitentiary Service for the Yamal-Nenets District is spreading news about the death of Alexei Navalny in Penal Colony 3. We have no confirmation of this yet,” the official Telegram channel said. Navalny’s lawyer Leonid Solovyov is currently on his way to the penal colony. He last saw Navalny on Wednesday and the 47-year-old was doing well.

Source: Blick