As of: February 19, 2024, 3:36 p.m
Comments
Press
Split
Alexei Navalny had Ukrainian roots and opposed the war in Ukraine.
But the Krem critic also went on a confrontation course with Kiev.
KYIV - For Ukrainian officials, the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was the latest evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin runs a murderous regime and that Ukraine cannot and must not negotiate with him.
This reflects the ambivalence that many Ukrainians felt towards the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The half-Ukrainian had made controversial statements that raised suspicions that he held Russian nationalist views similar to Putin.
“Putin is the ultimate evil who fears all competition,” Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration, wrote on X (formerly Tiwtter).
“The lives of Russians mean nothing to him.
Anyone who calls for negotiations must realize that they cannot be trusted.
The only language he understands is violence.”
Read The Washington Post for free for four weeks
Your quality ticket from washingtonpost.com: Get exclusive research and 200+ stories free for four weeks.
Ukraine after Navalyn's death: You cannot negotiate with Russia or death
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior presidential adviser, made a similar statement.
“Stop believing that you can make some kind of deal with death itself or with a bloody dictator,” Podoljak wrote.
Putin and his supporters are not interested in “treaties, guarantees or stability,” he added.
“But they are absolutely interested in mass death and murder.
Everywhere.
In their own country and especially in other countries.”
Memorial image for Alexei Navalny (symbolic image).
© serienlicht/Imago
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reminded his followers in X of the "long list" of Putin's critics and opponents who, like Navalny, died under violent or unclear circumstances:
My news
Traffic light is annoyed with “King Söder”: Baerbock says read breakfast at the security conference
Bulwark against Putin fallen: Chaos retreat from Avdiivka - Ukrainians probably let soldiers read back
Payment card for asylum seekers: Habeck causes the next dispute - Kubicki threatens to break the traffic light
After Navalny's death: Putin's top propagandist blames the West for reading
Survey earthquake for the AfD: Right-wingers are slipping – Wagenknecht marches off read
“On Putin’s side”: Trump finds himself caught in the crossfire after Navalny’s death
Anna Politkovskaya, journalist
Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB agent and dissident
Sergei Magnitsky, auditor who exposed fraud by Russian officials and was killed in prison
Boris Nemtsov, Russian opposition leader
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
© Kirill Chubotin/Imago
Navalny's death is intended to prove that Putin cannot be trusted
“After each murder there was great outrage, but Vladimir Putin eventually got away with impunity and world leaders shook his hand again,” Kuleba wrote.
“That encouraged him to continue killing people.”
Kuleba said Alexei Navalny's death was a rebuke to those who insist that Putin can be trusted and that Ukraine should sit down and end the conflict with Russia through negotiations.
“Today there are still voices that demand that Putin be heard and negotiated with him.
It’s time to end this naivety,” he wrote.
“Before meaningful engagement with Moscow can begin, Russia must be defeated in Ukraine and Putin must finally learn a lesson.”
Before his death, Navalny supported Russia's annexation of Crimea
After Russia invaded and illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula region in 2014, Alexei Navalny criticized the way the situation was handled.
But the Kremlin critic also tried to avoid conflict with the overwhelming majority of Russians, who polls showed supported annexation.
Navalny urged people to accept that Crimea is Russian and will remain so, famously asking whether Crimea is a bologna sandwich passed back and forth.
Alexei Navalny later spoke out forcefully against Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the Ukraine War, he called for the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops, the restoration of Ukraine's territorial sovereignty, and Russia paying reparations to Ukraine from oil and gas revenues.
Zelenskyj is using Navalny's death to criticize Russia and Putin
Still, some Ukrainians responded to Alexei Navalny's death by posting images on social media of a sandwich being thrown in the trash.
Yevhen Klopotenko, a Ukrainian celebrity chef who has supported the war effort, posted a tweet with a photo of two pieces of bread, one moldy, and an arrow pointing to a trash can.
Zelensky used Navalny's death to criticize Putin's regime.
"Obviously he was killed by Putin, like thousands of other tortured people - tortured because of this one man," Zelensky said at a news conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, his first comments after Navalny's death became known.
“Putin doesn’t care who dies as long as he keeps his position,” Zelensky said.
“That’s why he shouldn’t keep anything.
He must be defeated, lose everything and answer for what he has done”.
To the author
David L. Stern
has worked for news organizations in Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia.
He has lived in Ukraine since 2009 and reported on the Maidan Revolution in 2014, the war in the east of the country and the Russian invasion in 2022.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 19, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.