Incarcerated in a remote penal colony in the Arctic, where he died this Friday while serving a 19-year prison sentence, Alexeï Navalny had only one channel of communication since his imprisonment since January 2021: his social networks .
His last interview given to a media outlet was via correspondence from October to January 2022 with a journalist from the American weekly
Time
.
To discover
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In the series of twenty handwritten letters, Alexeï Navalny returned to his label of
“terrorist”
attached to the foot of his prison bed.
“(Vladimir Putin) is the one who ordered an act of terrorism – to kill a political opponent.
But it’s my bed that bears the terrorist label.”
The activist spoke of his return on January 17, 2021 to Russia, where he was immediately arrested upon his arrival in his country.
“There was no discussion with my friends, no emotional conversation with my wife,”
he wrote from his cell.
From the moment I opened my eyes (after being poisoned on August 20, 2020), I knew I had to come back.”
“Don’t wait for Putin to physically die”
Alexeï Navalny, who died at the age of 47, wanted
“not to wait for the physical death of Putin”
to see political change in Russia, after more than two decades of rule by the current head of the Kremlin.
Even by resorting to force, since he believed that the
“path”
of his country
“has never been strewn with roses”
.
The opponent had also criticized the balance of power between Western countries and Russia.
According to him, the
“deployment of American forces in Eastern Europe or the possibility that Ukraine one day joins the NATO alliance”
did not really worry the Russian president.
He compared the United States to
“a frightened schoolboy who was bullied by a senior classmate,”
while he wanted the country led by Joe Biden
to “go directly to Putin’s personal fortune”
to scare him.
The short-lived candidate for the presidential election in December 2016 also gave
“the origin of all the conflicts that Russia is waging with the West”
:
“the space of democratic dissent covered by NATO all along the Russian borders »
.
Read alsoDeath of Alexeï Navalny: the life of the Russian opponent in five dates
No regrets about coming back to Russia
Vladimir Putin's number 1 adversary had given an explanation to explain the head of state's mode of governance.
“To consolidate the country and the elites, it constantly needs all these extreme measures, all these wars – real, virtual, hybrid or simply confrontations bordering on war.”
In his latest exchanges, Alexeï Navalny showed no regret for having returned to Russia rather than remaining in exile and assured that the Russian president had
“made things worse for himself”
by imprisoning him.
“It is clear that this is a personal and emotional decision on (his) part.
First of all, I didn't die of poison.
Then I didn't become a vegetable like the doctors feared.
Then I had the nerve not only to come back to Russia, but also to open an investigation into Putin’s corruption.”