Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny pronounced dead in jail

Alexei Navalny, Russian politician and staunch opponent of President Vladimir Putin’s regime, has died in prison in Siberia on Friday. He was 47 years old.  

He had collapsed and lost conscience on Friday after a stroll in the prison yard according to the statement by the Federal Penitentiary Service branch that operates his prison. A team of medics tried to resuscitate him, but had to pronounce him dead. 

The cause of death is being determined.

His death followed three years in various prisons for fraud, inciting and financing extremism, rehabilitation of Nazism, with the total sentence length exceeding three decades. In life he had denied all charges, calling them “a means of intimidating his allies.”

Internationally Mr Navalny was recognized as a political prisoner, with Amnesty international considering him a ‘prisoner of conscience.’

He is survived by his wife, Yulia, and children Daria and Zahar.

First Reactions

Upon the announcement of Mr Navalny’s death, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that “The Federal Penitentiary Service is conducting an investigation.”

President Putin did not issue a statement.

Western leaders who had demanded Mr Navalny’s release from prison laid the responsibility for his death at the hands of the Russian government.

“We don’t know exactly what happened,” said U.S. president Joe Biden, “but there is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar called Mr Navalny’s death “further evidence if we ever needed it that Russia is a deeply oppressive state.”

Navalny in life

Prior to his jailing and death, Mr Navalny had participated in the Moscow mayoral election in 2013 and in the Russian presidential election in 2018.

He had established the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), an NGO which focused on investigating corruption among high-ranking Kremlin officials and the Russian elite.

Russia’s Ministry of Justice labeled the ACF a “foreign agent” in 2019, before being liquidated as an “extremist organization” in 2021 following Moscow City Court’s ruling.

“If it is true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died,’ but ‘Putin killed Navalny’,” said Leonid Volkov, ex-ACF chairman and chief-of-staff for Mr Navalny’s presidential campaign.

Ksenia Sobchak, who ran alongside Mr Navalny in the 2018 election, said the news of his death shocked her.

“My condolences to his loved ones,” she said in a video on her YouTube channel.

‘Day of Reckoning’

In 2020 Mr Navalny had suffered a fainting spell during a flight. The German Charité hospital issued a statement that Mr Navalny had been poisoned by “a chemical nerve agent of the Novichok group.”

In response, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russian medics who had treated Mr Navalny before he was moved to Germany had found no evidence of poisoning.

Having recovered he returned to Russian in early 2021 with his wife Yulia and was arrested at the airport upon his arrival.

His arrest and subsequent jailing triggered mass protests across Russia and abroad.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Yulia Navalnaya said that she “wants Putin, his inner circle, his friends and government to bear responsibility for what they’ve done to my country, my family, and my husband.”

“Their day of reckoning is coming soon,” she said, and called on the global community to help topple President Putin’s regime.

Last Words

The story of Mr Navalny’s poisoning and return to Russia became the basis for Daniel Roher’s 2022 documentary film “Navalny,” which had gone on to win ‘Best Documentary Feature’ at the 95th Academy Awards.

In the movie, when asked what message he wants to leave behind for the Russian people in case he dies, Mr Navalny says “Don’t give up.”

“If they decide to kill me, that means that we have become a force to be reckoned with,” he says.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to idle. Don’t idle.”