An ally of Alexéi Navalny, Lilia Tchanycheva, and a figure of the Russian opposition, Vladimir Kara-Murzá, both imprisoned in Russia, reacted to the death of the opponent despite their limited communication with the outside world, which among other things means finding out of late news.
In a message published yesterday, Lilia Chanicheva, sentenced in June 2023 to seven and a half years in prison, wrote that she could not “say what I think about the death of Alexei Navalny” due to the “censorship” of the prison administration. “My deepest condolences to his loved ones and parents. “I am in mourning,” she simply indicated in this message sent from prison to her followers and published on her Telegram account.
Lilia Chanicheva, former head of the branch of Navalny’s anti-corruption organization in her hometown, in the republic of Bashkortostan, in central Russia, was the first of her collaborators to be tried and convicted of creating an “extremist organization”, time after she was prohibited from being a candidate for the local Parliament and the mayor of Ufa.
Another major opponent, Vladimir Kará-Murzá, an old friend of Alexei Navalny and the assassinated opponent (in 2015) Boris Nemtsov, was able to send a more detailed message, which was published on Tuesday on social networks by his team. “The responsibility for the death of Alexei Navalny lies personally with Vladimir Putin, because Alexei was his personal prisoner,” he wrote.
“It is the best who die, the bravest, the most sincere, the least indifferent. Everyone will return except those we need most,” continues Kará-Murzá, quoting a song by the Russian bard Vladimir Vissotski (1938-1980). “A vengeful, fearful and greedy old man maintains a mortal grip on him by destroying everything he perceives as a threat to his power,” adds the opponent, referring to President Putin.
Kará-Murzá, a Russian-British citizen, was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being accused of treason, spreading “false information” about the Russian army and maintaining links with an “undesirable organization”. This is the harshest sentence imposed on an opponent in the country’s recent history. Furthermore, he is in very poor health, according to his followers, as a result of two poisonings or attempted poisonings that he suffered in 2015 and 2017.
In his message, the imprisoned politician states that he learned of Navalny’s death on the radio, in his cell, on February 16, the day of the issuance of the brief press release from the prison administration that announced the death of the main opponent of Vladimir Putin.
