As of: February 29, 2024, 5:23 a.m
By: Kathrin Braun
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With Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition has lost its most prominent face.
How should the resistance against ruler Vladimir Putin continue?
Long before Navalny's death, the opposition was considered weak - and divided.
Munich
– The mission was never really promising.
Just over a year ago, Alexei Navalny's team launched the #FreeNavalny campaign - a loose association of Putin opponents scattered all over the world emerged.
There is also a small group of volunteers in Germany who have called for protests in various cities.
The activists occasionally stood in front of Russian consulates with “Stop Putin” posters and demanded the release of their idol.
One of them is Vasilina K. The mission failed, Navalny is dead. Nevertheless, she says, the work is far from done.
"We will not give up."
Don't give up - that sounds more defiant than hopeful these days.
Especially since Putin is becoming increasingly tough on his opponents.
He had men who laid flowers for Navalny arrested and sent to the front.
Others disappeared into prison camps.
And now the loss of a figurehead.
“We’re still sorting ourselves out,” says Vasilina K., who moved from Moscow to Berlin eight years ago to study.
One thing is already certain for her: “Juliya Navalnaya will be the new face of the opposition.
And we stand by their side.”
Demonstrators gather with signs in front of the Russian embassy after the death of Alexei Navalny.
The Russian opposition leader has died in a Russian prison, the Russian Penitentiary Service said.
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
“First Lady” of the Russian opposition: Navalnaya wants to continue her husband’s fight
Just a few days after her husband's death, Navalnaya addressed the Russian people: She promised to continue her husband's work.
For years she was called the “First Lady” of the opposition – now she wants to be at its head herself.
Just yesterday she spoke to the EU Parliament in Strasbourg and called on the world to fight against Putin.
But the truth is that the opposition she now wants to lead may not even exist at the moment.
In any case, there is no longer an opposition in the classic sense in Russia: parliamentary parties that, like the Union in Germany, rail against the government every day are unimaginable in the State Duma.
Although there are other parties in the lower house alongside Putin's “United Russia” (they share 125 of 450 seats), none of them deviates from the government line.
Because that's how Putin's power apparatus works: Serious critics don't even have the chance to take part in elections - such as war opponent Boris Nadezhdin, who recently managed to collect more than 100,000 signatures in order to be allowed to take part in the presidential election in two weeks.
Putin put a stop to this.
The election commission quickly declared 9,000 signatures invalid and Nadezhdin was not allowed to run.
When we talk about opposition, it is usually about lone fighters.
Resisters in prison or in exile.
“In principle, everyone who supports a Russian constitutional state belongs to the opposition,” says Irina Scherbakova.
So she is also an opposition member.
The 75-year-old historian is co-founder of the human rights organization Memorial, which has spent decades shedding light on the repressions under Stalin - and now those under Putin.
Putin critic Scherbakova hardly surprised by Navalny's death
When Memorial received the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2022 for its work on behalf of politically persecuted people and prisoners, the Kremlin's reaction was not long in coming.
Just a few hours later, all of the organization's Moscow offices were confiscated.
Irina Scherbakova is already in exile.
She left her homeland with the attack on Ukraine.
“The war changed everything,” she says.
She didn't want to remain silent about Putin's crimes, but in Russia she no longer has the opportunity to speak out freely.
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Today Scherbakova lives in Berlin and is one of the most important voices in exile critical of Putin.
She wasn't really shocked by Navalny's death.
“Of course the fear was always there – we know the conditions under which he was held prisoner.” For many, Navalny was a “symbol of the fight against Putin’s regime”.
“But I hope that the resistance doesn’t just focus on this one figure.
The Russian opposition has several faces.”
In fact, Navalny was not the only prominent critic of the regime.
So far, the exiled opposition has given little cause for hope.
Not only because their influence from prison camps or abroad is limited - their camps are also in competition.
Former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has lived in London since 2015, tried last year to bring together various Kremlin critics in an anti-war committee or an opposition congress.
His colleagues include the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and the former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.
However, Navalny's team never wanted to take part because they claimed leadership.
Other opposition groups, in turn, found it difficult to work with Navalny - many accused him of populist politics without a real program.
In 2007 he was even kicked out of the liberal Yabloko party because of nationalist and racist statements.
Even if Navalny was seen as a shining light of the opposition, he was never a leader who united Putin's opponents.
“There will never be democracy in Russia under Putin”
Irina Scherbakova believes that something could now change.
“It is now clear to everyone that with Putin there will never be democracy in Russia.
That’s the common denominator.” And even if not every Kremlin opponent was a fan of Navalny, they were all united in anger over his death.
“Alexei Navalny was a heroic opponent of President Vladimir Putin, and he paid the highest price for it,” writes Khodorkovsky in a guest article for
Politico.
“May this be a wake-up call for the world.” And the opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Mursa, who, like Navalny, is in a Siberian prison camp after two poison attacks, recently appealed to the Russian population to fight for democracy even more now: “These are We owe our fallen comrades.”
Vasilina K. has never met Navalny personally - but she still wants to continue fighting in his name.
“Our task was never to free Alexei as a person - but to free the beautiful Russia of the future, as he would have called it.” Vasilina knows that opposition work from abroad quickly reaches its limits.
“We cannot expect the Russians to take the risk and take to the streets,” she says.
“But we can pay their fines if they chose to do so themselves.”
And then there are the small gestures of resistance.
“For the presidential election, we call on people to vote exactly at twelve noon,” says Vasilina.
“When a lot of people stand in front of the polling stations, it becomes clear how many Russians really support Putin.” Shortly before his death, Navalny had called for the “Lunch Against Putin” campaign - just like Khodorkovsky and other opposition figures, who, despite all the disagreement have the same goal: Putin's overthrow.
(Kathrin Braun)