Alexei Navalny, found dead in prison this Friday, is a former Russian nationalist politician who
ended up imprisoned
in the furthest place possible from the Kremlin, near the Arctic Circle, for
being a danger to Vladimir Putin's regime.
Navalny helped fuel the 2011 and 2012 protests in Russia by campaigning against election fraud and government corruption,
investigating Putin's inner circle
and sharing the findings in slick videos that garnered hundreds of millions of views.
Navalny helped fuel the 2011 and 2012 protests in Russia by campaigning against election fraud.
Photo: Reuters
The high point of his political career came in 2013,
when he won 27% of the vote
in a Moscow mayoral race that few believed was free or fair.
He remained a thorn in the Kremlin's side for years
, identifying a palace built on the Black Sea for Putin's personal use, mansions and yachts used by former president Dmitry Medvedev and a sex worker who linked a top foreign policy official to a well-known oligarch.
Video
New criminal trial against Navalni on charges of embezzlement and contempt of court.
Novichok poisoning
In 2020,
Navalny fell into a coma following suspected Novichok poisoning
by the Russian security service FSB and was evacuated to Germany for treatment, where his life was saved.
He recovered and returned to Russia in January 2021, where he was arrested on a parole violation charge and
sentenced to the first of several prison terms that would total more than 30 years
behind bars.
One of the main accusations against Navalny
is for fraud
, something he
classified as a "political" position.
His arrest marked the starting point of
a wave of repression against the opposition
, the press and civil society considered critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Video
It is being investigated whether the Russian opponent was poisoned.
Putin recently launched a presidential campaign for his fifth term.
He is already the longest-serving Russian leader
since Joseph Stalin
and could surpass that if he runs for office again in 2030, a possibility since in 2020 he had constitutional rules on term limits rewritten.