Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most distinguished opposition chief, died in jail as we speak on the age of solely 47. Provided that he was beforehand poisoned (seemingly at Vladimir Putin’s order), it appears seemingly that his loss of life was ordered by Putin, as effectively.
In 2021, after being handled for the poisoning in Germany, Navalny bravely returned to Russia, regardless of figuring out he was more likely to be arrested and imprisoned on arrival (as certainly occurred). The fees in opposition to him had been clearly trumped up; his actual crime was opposing Putin’s dictatorship.
Navalny devoted his life to opposing Putin’s brutal regime, regardless of the grave dangers of doing so. At instances, he took some doubtful positions in an effort to attraction to Russian nationalists, as together with his waffling on the problem of Russia’s seizure of Crimea, which he referred to as unlawful and unjust, but additionally stated shouldn’t be reversed. However there may be little question Navalny stood for a vastly freer and extra democratic Russia than now exists. Even in jail, he denounced Putin’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine and referred to as for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine’s internationally acknowledged borders (which might require withdrawal from Crimea, as effectively).
Navalny’s views should not above criticism. However Westerners who suppose he did not go far sufficient in his opposition to Putin ought to ask themselves if they might have had the braveness to do as a lot as he did, had been they in his place—figuring out the worth of dissent might effectively be imprisonment and loss of life.
It’s effectively to keep in mind that Navalny was removed from the one political prisoner in Putin’s Russia. Opposition leaders equivalent to Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin stay in jail proper now. Western nations ought to press for his or her launch.
Navalny’s loss of life also needs to remind us of the broader ethical and strategic stakes in Putin’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine, which Navalny, Kara-Murza, Yashin, and different Russian dissenters rightly condemned. Along with saving Ukrainians from brutal occupation and oppression, a Ukrainian victory can be the perfect hope for a freer Russia. The US and its allies may also help by such measures as giving Ukraine the army support it wants, and confiscating Russian authorities belongings within the West, to make use of for that goal.
We are able to additionally open our doorways to Russians fleeing Putin’s regime, as many countries have carried out for Ukrainian refugees. As Ilya Yashin (one other opposition chief imprisoned for resisting Putin), urges us, we must always not overlook that ” hundreds of thousands of [his] countrymen left their homes behind, refusing to become murderers on the orders of the government,” and will “extend a hand” to Russians who oppose the regime.