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The video still from the YouTube channel “Navalny Life” shows Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in a police station in Khimki in the Moscow region in January 2021.
© --/Navalny Life/AP/dpa
Navalny, Kremlin chief Putin's main opponent, had long been considered doomed to death.
He barely survived a poison attack.
Nevertheless, he submitted himself to the prison camp system - and now died in custody.
Moscow – Like many prominent Kremlin critics before him, Alexei Navalny paid with his life for his fearless fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The country's most famous political prisoner died on Friday at the age of 47 in his Siberian penal colony, according to the judiciary.
It was said that he collapsed after a walk and attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful.
The father of the family had repeatedly complained about the lack of medical help, harassment and even torture in the prison camp.
Until the very end, the emaciated and visibly weakened politician appeared determined in his goal of achieving a “Russia without Putin”, for example when appearing at court hearings.
The lawyer made many enemies, especially with his fight against corruption in the power apparatus under Putin.
Navalny's anti-corruption fund spent years building up its own structures in many parts of the vast empire.
As they increasingly gained political influence and Navalny's people were elected, the leadership in Moscow had the network dismantled and banned as "extremist".
Leading members of Navalny's team fled abroad.
From their exile they continued the fight against what they saw as thoroughly criminal and mafia power structures.
But Navalny stayed.
Now his team has to make do without the figurehead Navalny.
Strong opponent of the invasion
From the prison camp, since Putin's attack on Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, the politician has not only repeatedly denounced Russian war crimes as a strong opponent of the invasion.
The charismatic politician with blue eyes, who would have liked to become president himself, warned above all that Putin would be re-elected next year.
The Kremlin leader, who has led the country for almost a quarter of a century, is steering Russia to ruin, warned Navalny.
Navalny stood by his fight against the system, and his family and friends appreciated him for it, but he wanted to face it within the country itself - and not from abroad.
This is one of the reasons why he returned to Russia in January 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated at the Berlin Charité after an assassination attempt involving the nerve agent Novichok - even though he was threatened with imprisonment.
In the same year he also received the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for intellectual freedom, which his daughter Dasha accepted.
Despite his imprisonment, Navalny managed to address the public with encouraging and often humorous texts from Penal Camp 6 in Melechovo near the city of Kovrov, about 260 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
The sentence was increased to a total of 19 years in prison at the last trial, which, like all the others before it, was considered politically staged.
Further lawsuits threatened.
However, his appearances at court proceedings repeatedly caused horror because he was becoming increasingly weak and physically deteriorating.
Wife: Letters are our last connection
Doctors appealed to Putin to ensure Navalny's right to medical treatment as a guarantor of the constitution.
Navalny's wife Julia had also written to the prison system and asked whether people were still working there.
She once complained last year that she hadn't been allowed to talk to her husband on the phone for almost a year.
“Letters are our last means of communication.” But recently, neither letters from Navalny nor documents have been delivered to him, said his spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch at the beginning of December.
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His wife Julia and their two children have been in constant fear for Navalny's life since he narrowly survived the attack using the chemical warfare agent Novichok in August 2020.
Navalny had described Putin as a “murderer” who had commissioned a hit squad from the domestic secret service FSB to do it.
The Kremlin always rejected this.
Navalny was aware that imprisonment in a prison camp, where many people die under unclear circumstances, is life-threatening.
The many special punishments in solitary confinement in a two by three meter punishment cell visibly took a toll on him.
Solitary confinement with a mentally ill man
In a post published on Instagram on the second anniversary of his imprisonment, Navalny wrote that a mentally ill man had been placed in a cell opposite him in solitary confinement.
“He screams 14 hours a day and three at night,” Navalny said.
“It is well known that sleep deprivation is one of the most effective tortures.” He has experienced and read a lot, but this is something new.
“Everything you read about the horror and fascist crimes of our prison system is all the truth.
With a correction: the reality is even worse,” Navalny wrote.
There are, for example, the well-known rapes with a mop - things that normal people would never think of.
“The prison system is run not just by a veritable collection of villains, but by actual sick perverts.”
Navalny's team repeatedly accused the Kremlin of continuing to do everything it could to eliminate Putin's most important opponent.
The warnings went unheeded.
For a long time, the Russian opposition had high hopes that Putin would suffer defeat in his war against Ukraine and have to resign.
But the 71-year-old has been on the winning track for months.
Russia's liberal opposition is likely to continue organizing underground resistance at home and abroad.
Millions follow Navalny's team on social networks, which also brings current political news programs, commentaries and talk shows on YouTube.
The “Russia without Putin” campaign recently began there with a view to the presidential election.
Navalny had called for people to vote for any candidate – just not for Putin.
dpa