An anticorruption activist who became the most prominent political opposition leader in Vladimir Putin’s increasingly repressive Russia, Alexei Navalny has left an enduring example of how to defy the state in the most difficult of circumstances. In his case, from an Arctic prison where Mr. Navalny died on Feb. 16. He was 47.
Before he was transferred to an Arctic penal colony where he spent significant time in solitary confinement, Mr. Navalny and his family endured years of official harassment, arrests and a near-fatal poisoning in 2020. After receiving life-saving treatment in Germany, the opposition leader returned to Russia in early 2021 fully expecting to be arrested for his relentless campaign aimed at exposing elite corruption. Mr. Navalny’s film targeting the autocrat himself, “Putin’s Palace,” has been viewed more than 130 million times on YouTube.
While Mr. Navalny and his team may have been the most savvy and well-organized of Russia’s opposition parties and factions, his persecution by the Kremlin was not unique, according to Miriam Lanskoy, an expert on Russian politics, democracy promotion, and civil society at the National Endowment for Democracy.
In this episode of History As It Happens, Ms. Lanskoy discusses Mr. Navalny’s legacy as well as the widespread problem of political prisoners in Russia and the surrounding region.
“There are over 600 political prisoners in Russia. There’s hope that as devastating as the killing of Navalny has been, that the attention it has brought about creates a small window to try to get some people out,” said Ms. Lanskoy, referring to unconfirmed reports that Mr. Putin ordered Mr. Navalny to be killed ahead of next month’s elections.
Eleven days after Nr. Navalny’s death, Russian human rights champion Oleg Orlov was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for criticizing the war in Ukraine.
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