Candles burn as people attend a vigil following the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, at the Trocadero near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, February 19, 2024.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Alexei Navalny's untimely death at 47 was foretold, from the time he decided to stand in opposition to the authoritarian and autocratic Vladimir Putin. The Russian President's intolerance of dissidents is no secret. The manner in which many of them have died suddenly is undisguised and leaves the impression that each death is meant to be a chilling message from the top to opponents -- mess with Putin, and you might end up drinking polonium-poisoned tea in a London restaurant, your door handles might be smeared with a killer nerve agent, your plane might crash or you might just be plain shot dead in your Moscow apartment, or you might be found dead in your bathtub of apparent suicide.
The list is long -- the journalist Anna Politkoskaya, the former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, the head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin. The only one to have survived a direct attack was Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who had acted as a double agent for British intelligence, long after he had moved to the UK as part of a prisoner swap.
Navalny was perhaps the strongest of Putin's opponents because of his ability to mobilise people on the streets. His anti-corruption outfit had earned him early credibility and popularity. He was arrested for leading protests against the 2011 Russian parliamentary elections. Navalny's growing appeal among youth rattled the Russian leader.
Soon enough, in an all too familiar tactic, he was trapped in a swarm of corruption and embezzlement cases, with the courts handing out convictions and prison sentences. His legal reprieve, obtained from the European Court of Human Rights, did not last long. In 2020, after he fell into a coma on a commercial flight within Russia, he was airlifted to Berlin for treatment, where he was diagnosed with poisoning by a nerve agent. He was imprisoned immediately upon his return to Russia, and handed a 20-year jail sentence. After he opposed Putin's war against Ukraine, a life sentence was slapped on him on terrorism charges. He was moved recently from a jail in western Russia to another near the Arctic, sparking concerns for his safety. The Russian prisons department said Navalny collapsed and died after a long walk.
Putin is unconcerned about the fingers pointing at him from around the world. Navalny had been barred from contesting next month's presidential elections, as he had been in 2018, but his team was involved in building up an opposition through secret websites. With virtually no opponents now, Putin is on course to win another six-year term as President. With Ukraine crumbling rapidly in its fightback against Russia, Putin appears confident of victory on the battlefield, too.
The US election in November may hand him another victory. From here on, the world has to be prepared to deal with a more emboldened Putin.