Feb 19,2024: Vladamir Putin believes that he is “untouchable” after years of an iron grip on Russia, the wife of jailed opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza has said, as she accused the autocrat of murdering Alexei Navalny.
Jailed Russian opposition figure and outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, who made global headlines when he was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020, has died aged 47, the Russian prison service said.
Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, rose to prominence campaigning against corruption in Putin’s Russia. He was known for his fiery rhetoric at public protests and in courtrooms, vocal presence on social media, and his team’s elaborate video investigations into state graft.
The cause of his reported death remained unclear, but the news drew a forceful reaction from Western leaders Friday, including US President Joe Biden, who pinned the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that “what has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality.”
Navalny had returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated after being poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. On arrival, Navalnvy was swiftly arrested on charges he dismissed as politically motivated.
He has been incarcerated ever since, with longstanding concerns for his welfare growing more intense after he was transferred to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle.
The Russian prison service on Friday said Navalny “felt unwell after a walk” and “almost immediately” lost consciousness. It said it was investigating his “sudden death.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been informed of the reports and that it is for doctors to determine the cause of Navalny’s death.
Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, meanwhile, called for Putin to be brought to justice.
“I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family, and with my husband,” she said in emotional remarks that prompted a standing ovation at the Munich Security Conference (MSC), adding that she did not have confirmation of her husband’s death.
“They will be brought to justice and this day will come soon.”
Lyudmila Navalnaya, Navalny’s mother, told Russian independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta she had last seen her son on February 12 – four days before his death – when he had been “alive, healthy and cheerful.” She said: “I don’t want to hear any condolences.”
At least 100 people were detained across the country for attending vigils and rallies for Navalny on Friday, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors Russian repression.
In Moscow, a crowd of mourners lay flowers in the snow before a monument to victims of political repression in a growing tribute to the late opposition figure, according to video from the scene.
Navalny was “a symbol of opposition, a symbol of hope for some brighter future for Russia. And there’s a feeling that with his death, this hope dies,” Valeria, a 23-year-old tour guide, told Agence France-Presse in Moscow. “If there had been still been any hope left, it is even less now than it was before,” she said.
Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August, after he was found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activists and various other crimes. He was already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges he denies.
Four months later, his lawyers said they had lost contact with Navalny, who was believed to be imprisoned in a penal colony about 150 miles east of Moscow.
He failed to appear at several scheduled court hearings in December. His legal team said on December 22 that he’d been missing for 17 days.
After filing 680 requests to locate Navalny, his team announced on December 25 that they had “found” him more than a thousand miles away at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, known as “Polar Wolf.”
Navalny joins a long list of Russian dissidents who died after challenging Putin’s legitimacy. Many questioned why he continued his campaign despite the clear risks to his safety.
Navalany’s reported death comes shortly before Russia’s presidential election, set to take place on March 17, which is widely seen by the international community as little more than a formality that will secure Putin a fifth term in power.
Even from detention, Navalny had continued to agitate against Putin’s government. In one of his final court appearances on February 8, Navalny urged prison service workers to “vote against Putin.”
Navalny posed one of the most serious threats to Putin during his rule, which has spanned more than two decades. He organized anti-government street protests and used his blog and social media to expose alleged corruption in the Kremlin and in Russian business.
His struggle earned him global fame when he was poisoned with Novichok in 2020. Navalny was airlifted from the Siberian city of Omsk and arrived comatose at a hospital in Berlin.
A joint investigation by CNN and the group Bellingcat implicated the Russian Security Service (FSB) in Navalny’s poisoning. The investigation found that the FSB toxins team of about six to 10 agents trailed Navalny for more than three years.
Navalny later duped one of the spies, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, into revealing how he was poisoned. He posed as a senior official from Russia’s National Security Council tasked with carrying out an analysis of the poisoning operation, and phoned Kudryavtsev, who provided a detailed account of how the nerve agents was applied to a pair of Navalny’s underpants.
Russia denied involvement in Nalvany’s 2020 poisoning. Putin said at the time that if the Russian security service had wanted to kill Navalny, they “would have finished” the job.
Western condemnation of the Kremlin was swift and fierce following news of Navalny’s death.
