Alexey Navalny quits his hunger strike 0:35
(CNN Spanish) -
Alexey Navalny is a really uncomfortable stone in the shoe for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This popular opponent, 44 years old, in the recent past had to suffer from continuous arrests to assaults that led, for example, to half of his face being painted green.
But it was in August that his attackers almost managed to end his life.
Listen to the new episode of
Global Challenges
with José Levy.
For the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, what happens with the opposition Alexey Navalny became a real nightmare.
In a few days when Hollywood and the Oscars take center stage, in this podcast we will deal with one of those “special” cases in which reality is probably more than fiction.
After having stood up to Putin, having been imprisoned, assaulted and even poisoned with the prohibited chemical material Novichok and long on the brink of death, Navalny's life was once again hanging by a thread due to a prolonged hunger strike that only now ends. to finish.
(Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP via Getty Images)
A crisis over Navalny in which the United States even threatened "punishments" against Russia, and on his part Putin came to warn that those who threaten their country "will repent as they have never done before."
Worrying?
Yes.
advertising
I explain.
On the one hand, we have an all-powerful Vladimir Putin who is already in his fourth term as president and who, according to a referendum last year, could remain in office for no less than 15 more years.
In other words, Vladimir Putin himself until 2036.
On a personal level I remember how at the end of the century ... of the last millennium, in one of my trips to Moscow, the Russian population reacted to me with: "Putin? Who is that?"
And the truth is that that ex-agent of the "Soviet" secret service, the feared KGB for many, was in those days a total stranger.
Strange now, huh?
There were even those who, in their total ignorance, their first reaction was to remember precisely a foul word in Spanish, also known in Russia, that begins with the same three letters.
But to the surprise of many, this stranger became central to the modern history of Russia, and has even had enormous popularity ratings in past years.
Many see with considerable admiration how he leads their country and transforms it back into a world superpower, respected by the world ...
And, yes, also feared.
Not only because of the weapons - conventional or not - that it has - something that we discussed in a recent podcast - but also because of different cases of poisoning of opponents with sometimes unlikely compounds, poisonings of which it is feared that Putin may have been behind.
The clearest previous case is that of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who died after being exposed to radioactive polonium.
To the point that President Joe Biden even referred to it in a really explicit way by confirming that, according to him, Putin is a "murderer".
Was it the most convenient description when talking about Russia and the United States?
Not necessarily.
Listen to the rest on the podcast.
I
await
your comments on
Twitter:
@joselevycnn.
Next week we will continue with more Global Challenges that present us this terrible or wonderful passionate corner of the universe where we lived.
Other Global Challenges:
Global Challenges |
Russia, China, Iran and North Korea put Biden in check
Russia's apocalyptic challenge to the US in the Arctic
The heavenly force that enabled the release of the ship Ever Given in the Suez Canal
Elections in Israel: a difficult riddle to solve
Myanmar after the military coup, what is happening?
Alexey NavalnyPodcast