What to know about Alexei Navalny and reports of his death

By Elliott Davis Jr., WASHINGTON US

The reported death in prison of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent political rival, sent shockwaves throughout Russia and the world on Friday – even if some were unsurprised by the outcome.

Officials say Navalny, 47, died at a penal colony in the Arctic Circle on Feb. 16 after being jailed for several years on multiple charges, including embezzlement and extremism – accusations he and his supporters have called politically motivated. For more than a decade, he had spoken out against Putin and his authoritarian regime, which has been marked by a general intolerance of dissent.

“There is no doubt that the death of Navalny was the consequence of something Putin and his thugs did,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday.

Here is what you need to know about Navalny, his death and Russia’s handling of political prisoners.

Arguably Putin’s most outspoken and popular adversary, Navalny has worked diligently to sway public opinion by exposing corruption around the Russian leader’s wealth and his retaliation against political opponents and activists.

He rose to prominence in the early 2000s when he formed a movement against overdevelopment in Moscow and alleged corruption in state-run corporations, The Associated Press reports. Navalny later participated in several mass protests and lobbed criticisms more directly at Putin and other Kremlin officials.

The dissident leader ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and intended to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential race, but was barred from running, according to Reuters.

Navalny, who is half-Ukrainian, has spoken out against the Russian invasion of its neighbor but had a complicated history with the country, saying in 2011 that “it would be great if now we lived in one country with Ukraine and Belarus, but I think that sooner or later it will happen anyway,” according to the Washington Post.

“Navalny will be forever in Russian history,” Konstantin Sonin, a distinguished service professor and Russian economist at the University of Chicago, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, about his friend. “In terrible prison conditions,” he added, Navalny spoke against “Putin’s criminal war against Ukraine, against Putin’s criminal regime, and for a better, more honest and kind Russia.”

Navalny left behind his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and two children. Navalnaya said in an appearance at the Munich Security Conference on Friday that Putin and his team “will be brought to justice.”

“We cannot believe Putin and his government,” she said. “They are lying constantly. But if it’s true, I would like Putin and all his staff, everybody around him, his government, his friends, 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.”

In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent that he and his supporters attribute directly to Putin’s orders, allegations which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. Navalny spent weeks in a medically induced coma following the attack. The following year, Navalny was sentenced to 2 ½ years in a federal penal colony for a parole violation because he recovered in Germany after the poisoning attack. His arrest sparked protests in the country. In 2022, he was given a nine-year sentencing for embezzlement.

Navalny was later hit with a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism in August 2023, and recently faced additional charges related to vandalism.

Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk at a penal colony in Kharp, which is more than 1,000 miles northeast of Moscow, Reuters reports. He lost consciousness almost immediately, and the causes of death were being established, the statement read.

Putin was later informed about the incident, according to a report by Tass, the Russian state news service. Another article on the state-run website noted that Navalny had felt fine while attending a court appearance virtually on Thursday, and video of the proceeding showed him joking and laughing with the judge.

Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s chief of staff, seemed to have some doubt his boss was dead, posting on X following the reports that he had “no reason to believe state propaganda.” On Wednesday, Navalny’s account on the social media site wrote that he had been given “15 days in a punishment cell,” adding that it was the “the 4th punishment cell in less than 2 months,” according to a translation.

Recent tallies are staggering. As of April 2023, there were 558 political prisoners in the country, according to Memorial, Russia’s oldest and most prominent human rights organization, which was ordered to shutter in 2021. That number was more than three times the figure counted five years prior, according to the AP.

Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, is one example. The journalist has been jailed in Russia for almost a year under spying charges – which he denies – and is still awaiting a trial. Putin said recently that Gershkovich could be freed in a prisoner swap.

But there are many others. Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition politician like Navalny, was sentenced to prison for social media posts denouncing atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha, Ukraine, the Washington Post reports. Putin’s government has also jailed human rights defender Vladimir Kara-Murza, Moscow city councilman Alexei Gorinov and journalist Maria Ponomarenko – all of whom also spoke out against the war.

“We call on Russia to release the more than 500 political prisoners it holds, including those who are unjustly incarcerated for expressing views which challenge Putin’s false narratives about his brutal war of choice against Ukraine,” reads a February 2023 statement by Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.