The Russian penitentiary services announced this Friday the death in prison of the well-known opponent and activist Alexei Navalny, the most prominent figure of dissidence and the Russian response to Vladimir Putin in the last decade.
The prison directorate of the Yamalo-Nenets region published a statement in which it stated that the imprisoned politician died after taking a walk. In his message, it says: “On February 16, 2024 in correctional colony number 3, the convicted Navalny A.A., after walking, felt ill, losing consciousness almost immediately.”
“All the necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, which did not give positive results,” adds the message, published on the prison agency’s website. “The emergency doctors certified the death of the condemned man. The causes of death are being determined,” he concludes.
Alexei Navalny, 47, was serving several prison sentences totaling more than three decades of deprivation of liberty in sentences that his followers consider fabricated to remove him from politics and as punishment for his criticism of the Kremlin. Since last December he had been admitted to a penal colony in the Arctic.
After hearing the news, the international community highlighted the value of Putin’s main internal adversary.
The repression in recent years against voices critical of power has forced many opponents to leave Russia. Navalny, who in August 2020 was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent and transferred to Germany for his recovery, nevertheless decided to return, knowing that his political adventure could end up behind bars.
The prominent activist, creator of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, an organization now banned in Russia, was arrested in January 2021 at the same Moscow airport, shortly after setting foot in his country. Since then he has never left prison.
The death of Alexei Navalny occurred a month before the Russian presidential elections, which will be held on March 15, 16 and 17 and Putin will surely win, achieving his fifth term as head of state.
Navalny began politically challenging the Kremlin in 2011, leading the largest protests of the Putin era. He also tried it at the polls. In 2013 he ran for election to the Moscow City Council. He achieved more than 27% of the vote and was on the verge of forcing a second round against the current mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, a Putin ally, who won that year by just over 50%.
In 2018, Navalny wanted to run in the Russian presidential elections, but his registration was not accepted due to several convictions that disqualified him from being a candidate. Putin won hands down with more than 76% of the vote.
The final result of this year’s elections is expected to yield similar figures, with an unmitigated re-election of the current Russian president.
He will face only three rivals, all representatives of parties loyal to the Kremlin, which make up the favored opposition in Russia: Leonid Slutski, leader of the nationalist Liberal-Democratic Party; Nikolai Kharitonov, for the Communist Party; and Vladislav Davankov, from Gente Nueva.
Until last week there was hope that the shortlist of candidates would be completed with Boris Nadezhdin, a semi-unknown politician who has spoken out against the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. He was going to be the only pacifist candidate in the elections, but the Central Electoral Commission disqualified his candidacy by declaring thousands of the signatures that he had presented as endorsement null and void.
