That Was Alexei

 Yesterday in court:

From the BBC's Obituary today (photos in original):

 

According to the prison service, he had gone for a walk when he lost consciousness and died.🙄

...

One of his tactics was to become a minority shareholder in major oil companies, banks and ministries, and to ask awkward questions about holes in state finances.

Highly intelligent, you don't get to be that clever and glib by accident, he was a lawyer (of course).

...Navalny spoke the street language of younger Russians, and used it to powerful effect on social media...

 Then, in 2011, he would lead large street protests against President Putin. 

                                                                 With wife Yulia in 2015

For the rest of his life, he would be in and out of jail, while his organisations would be banned as "extremist".

In 2017, he was barred from standing in the general election. At the time, he was widely regarded as the only candidate with a chance of challenging President Putin.

The Novichok poisoning 

 ...
In August 2020, Navalny collapsed on a flight over Siberia and was rushed to hospital in Omsk. That emergency landing saved his life. A German-based charity persuaded Russian officials to allow him to be airlifted to Berlin for treatment.

 

In September, the German government revealed that tests carried out by the military found "unequivocal proof of a chemical nerve warfare agent of the Novichok group". The Kremlin denied any involvement and rejected the Novichok finding.

 

Novichok was the chemical weapon which nearly killed former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in March 2018. A local woman later died from contact with Novichok.

Mr Putin admitted that the state was keeping Navalny under surveillance - it was justified, he alleged, because US spies were helping the blogger.

                           With family in Berlin during treatment in the Novichok poisoning

Recovered, Navalny returned to Moscow on 17 January 2021 and was immediately detained, as he knew he would be. He said on Instagram that he felt he had never left - so there was no choice but to return.

He would never be free again...

 

The arrests did not deter his team from their mission. A video of "Putin's palace" on YouTube was quickly published...

 

The court case which followed allowed Navalny to make public his allegations against President Putin, in what was now an intensely personal battle: he accused the president of ordering state agents to poison him - and repeated that in court.

"His main gripe with me is that he'll go down in history as a poisoner," Navalny told the court scornfully. "We had Alexander the Liberator, Yaroslav the Wise, and we will have Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner." 

 

"A Little Bit Alexei" 😁

 

Underpants had become a social media meme in Russia after Navalny carried out a telephone sting in December 2020 on a Russian FSB state security agent, who revealed that Novichok, a highly toxic Russian chemical weapon, had been smeared on Navalny's underwear.

 

The classic Alexei. A little bit a Borat.😁

 

But while it highlighted once more the Kremlin's alleged attempts on his life, it did not stop the court finding him guilty. 

 

I lost my First Amendment suit against the Miami State Attorney's Office (due to my lawyer's oversight).

In videos dating back to 2007, he is seen appearing to compare ethnic conflict to tooth decay and likened immigrants to cockroaches. He also said the Crimea peninsula "de facto belongs to Russia", despite international condemnation of Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian territory. 

 

He was Russian to his core, and loved his country.

 

His harsh treatment reflected the fact than Mr Putin and his regime feared the influence that Navalny's campaigns had been gaining, Prof Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and international affairs experts, told the BBC at the time [August, 2023].

"Putin doesn't even mention his name, anybody in the Kremlin can't mention his name," she said, drawing a comparison with the fictional Harry Potter character Voldemort - who is also referred to as "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named".

"Navalny is a threat to Putin's personal power...

As I was to my former boss Katherine Fernandez Rundle. "You can't criticize me," 😁 she said to the Miami Herald after the judge dismissed my lawsuit.

 …Putin's personal reputation of himself. And Putin doesn't really treat his enemies lightly and Navalny unfortunately took this - as they say in Russian - this ticket to be Putin's personal enemy." 

Yet despite the confinement of his last years, Navalny became one of the leading domestic voices against the war in Ukraine.

During a court appearance in May 2022, he accused Mr Putin of starting a "stupid war" with "no purpose or meaning". And in September, he accused Russian elites of having a "bloodthirsty obsession with Ukraine" in an article for the Washington Post. 

...

"I don't know whether or not to believe the news, the terrible news. You all know this - we can't believe Putin and Putin's government. They're always lying. But if this is true, I want Putin and all of his entourage, Putin's friends and his government to know that they will be held accountable for what they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband."--Wife Yulia Navlanaya at the Munich Security Conference, hours after news of her husband's death broke.

She left the stage to a standing ovation.