Navalny spent a decade with Putin’s target on his back – he knew this was how it would end

From the moment Alexei Navalny returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany three years ago, there was always a fear that he was a dead man walking. But the news, when it came at the end, was still a shock, sending reverberations around the world.

The emergency health issue that had taken Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic opponent to Berlin in a coma was novichok poisoning, with the Kremlin the prime suspect. Navalny’s family and friends had urged him not to go back to Russia, but he was determined to continue his fight.

Navalny was arrested at the airport, put before a court, and sentenced to two and half years of a formerly suspended jail term for alleged fraud. This was just a holding move by the government prosecutors, and a series of other charges followed, ultimately paving the way for his lonely death in an icy Arctic prison where he was serving a 19-year sentence.

Authorities in the prison tasked with administering the “special regime” Navalny had been placed under issued a statement saying he had “felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness”.

“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but did not yield positive results,” read the statement, adding: “Cause of death yet to be ascertained.”

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Navalny had been in the prison hospital, having spoken of the effects of brutality behind bars and his continuing malnourishment. Mariana Katzarova, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Russian Federation, had expressed fears not long ago, saying: “Persistent ill-treatment in detention and lack of access to adequate medical care will cause further harm to his health and lead to great risks to his life.”

The first time Navalny was seen by the outside world after being sent to the Colony IK-3, known as “Polar Wolf”, in Kharp, 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, was in a court appearance via video in January.

With jocular sarcasm, he asked state lawyers whether a delay in the hearing had been because they had been attending the notorious “near-naked party” reported to have been held by the Moscow glitterati. But he looked pale and gaunt. However, he appeared somewhat better at a subsequent court hearing. His mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, in a Facebook post, said he had looked well at a meeting earlier this week.

Western leaders eulogised the bravery of a man who had stood up to oppression, and condemned the Kremlin for the treatment Navalny had suffered.

Rishi Sunak tweeted: “As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life.” Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said Navalny’s death “underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia’s responsible for this…”.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke of a man who “stood up for democracy and freedom in Russia and apparently paid for his courage with his life”, adding that the news of Navalny’s death “shows what kind of regime is in power in Moscow”. French foreign minister Stephanie Sejourne said: “Alexei Navalny paid with his life for his resistance to a system of oppression. His death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of Vladimir Putin’s regime.”

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In the former Soviet states, the chain of culpability was condemned by political leaders. Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics declared Navalny had been “brutally murdered by the Kremlin”. Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky spoke of the violence of Russia, which he said “has turned into a violent state that kills people who dream of a better future ... imprisoned and tortured to death for standing up to Putin.”

In Moscow, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova bemoaned the fact that the West had already reached its own conclusions despite forensics still being unavailable; an attitude, she said, that was typically “self-revealing”.

We may never find out exactly how Navalny died. But what we do know is that those who are perceived to be real threats to President Putin tend to end up dead. People like Boris Nemtsov, who was killed with four bullets to his back in Moscow in 2014, when he was organising protests against financial corruption and Russian intervention in Ukraine. Or, more recently, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his senior commanders, whose plane was blown out of the sky following the failed coup by their Wagner mercenaries.

There does not appear to be any particular reason why the Kremlin should want to eliminate an adversary who had been locked away out of sight. It is not as if any credible candidates would be allowed to challenge Putin in the presidential election scheduled for March.

The tide in the Ukraine war has turned, for the time being at least, Russia’s way. Donald Trump, accused of being the Muscovian candidate when he was president, may well be back in the White House and is already issuing threats to Nato. The Brics group of countries, of which Russia is a core member, is rapidly enlarging its economic and political power.

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But Putin has spoken more than once about how “traitors” must be made to pay however long it takes. And for him and his coterie, opposition to the system by people like Navalny can be conveniently labelled treachery. Furthermore, would Putin even care that he is being accused of Navalny’s killing?

There is a telling, riveting scene in a BBC documentary titled Putin: The New Tsar. It shows a 2006 dinner hosted by the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, with the then president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, sitting on one side and Putin on the other.

Saakashvili, on poor terms with Moscow at the time, was on his way to London. Former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko had been poisoned in a London restaurant not long after Putin had signed a law allowing the Russian intelligence services to kill traitors outside the country.

Lukashenko, laughing, advises Georgia’s president to fill himself up with food and avoid eating in London. Then, saying he would like to make matters even safer, the Belarusian strongman swaps Saakashvili’s plate with that of Putin. Russia’s president is only mildly annoyed as he points out that no evidence has been produced to link him to Litvinenko’s murder.