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Protests, poisoning and prison: The life and death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny
Protests, poisoning and prison: The life and death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s top opposition leader and President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in prison on Friday, a statement from the Federal Penitentiary Service said.
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, felt unwell after a walk and collapsed, it said. The politician’s team had no immediate confirmation of his death.
Navalny was moved in December from his former prison in central Russia to to a “special regime” penal colony — the highest security level of prisons in Russia — above the Arctic Circle.
In a span of a decade, he went from being the Kremlin’s biggest foe to Russia’s most prominent political prisoner.
Here’s a look at key events in Navalny’s life, political activism and the charges he has faced through the years:
June 4, 1976 — Navalny is born in a western part of the Moscow region.
1997 — Graduates from Russia’s RUDN university, where he majored in law; earns a degree in economics in 2001 while working as a lawyer.
2004 — Forms a movement against rampant overdevelopment in Moscow, according to his campaign website.
2008 — Gains notoriety for alleging corruption in state-run corporations, such as gas giant Gazprom and oil behemoth Rosneft, through his blogs and other posts.
2010 — Founds RosPil, an anti-corruption project run by a team of lawyers that analyzes spending of state agencies and companies, exposing violations and contesting them in court.
2011 — Establishes the Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which will become his team’s main platform for exposing alleged graft among Russia’s top political ranks.
December 2011 — Participates in mass protests sparked by reports of widespread rigging of Russia’s parliamentary election, and is arrested and jailed for 15 days for “defying a government official.”
March 2012 — Following President Vladimir Putin’s reelection and inauguration, mass protests break out in Moscow and elsewhere. Navalny accuses key figures, including then-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Chechnya’s strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, of corruption.
July 2012 — Russia’s Investigative Committee charges Navalny with embezzlement involving Kirovles, a state-owned timber company in the Kirov region, while acting as an adviser to the local governor. Navalny rejects the allegations as politically motivated.
December 2012 — The Investigative Committee launches another probe into alleged embezzlement at a Navalny-linked Russian subsidiary of Yves Rocher, a French cosmetics company. Navalny again says the allegations are politically motivated.
2013 — Navalny runs for mayor in Moscow — a move the authorities not only allow but encourage in an attempt to put a veneer of democracy on the race that is designed to boost the profile of the incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin.
July 2013 — A court in Kirov convicts Navalny of embezzlement in the Kirovles case, sentencing him to five years in prison. The prosecution petitions to release Navalny from custody pending his appeal, and he resumes his campaign.
September 2013 — Official results show Navalny finishes second in the mayor’s race behind Sobyanin, with 27% of the vote, after a successful electoral and fundraising campaign collecting an unprecedented 97.3 million rubles ($2.9 million) from individual supporters.
October 2013 — A court hands Navalny a suspended sentence in the Kirovles case.
February 2014 — Navalny is placed under house arrest in connection with the Yves Rocher case and banned from using the internet. His blog continues to be updated regularly, presumably by his team, detailing alleged corruption by various Russian officials.
December 2014 — Navalny and his brother, Oleg, are found guilty of fraud in the Yves Rocher case. Navalny receives a 3 ½-year suspended sentence, while his brother is handed a prison term. Both appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
December 2015 — Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption releases its first long-form video — a YouTube documentary called “Chaika,” which means “seagull” in Russian but is also the last name of then-Prosecutor General Yury Chaika. The 44-minute video accuses him of corruption and alleged ties to a notorious criminal group and has piled up 26 million views on YouTube. Chaika and other Russian officials deny the accusations.
February 2016 — The European Court of Human Rights rules that Russia violated Navalny’s right to a fair trial in the Kirovles case, ordering the government to pay his legal costs and damages.
November 2016 — Russia’s Supreme Court overturns Navalny’s sentence and sends the case back to the original court in the city of Kirov for review.
December 2016 — Navalny announces he will run in Russia’s 2018 presidential election.
February 2017 — The Kirov court retries Navalny and upholds his five-year suspended sentence from 2013.
March 2017 — Navalny releases a YouTube documentary accusing then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of corruption, getting over seven million views in its first week. A series of anti-graft protests across Russia draw tens of thousands and there are mass arrests. Navalny tours the country to open campaign offices, holds big rallies and is jailed repeatedly for unauthorized demonstrations.
April 27, 2017 — Unidentified assailants throw a green disinfectant in his face, damaging his right eye. He blames the attack on the Kremlin.
October 2017 — The European Court of Human Rights finds Navalny’s fraud conviction in the Yves Rocher case to be “arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable.”
December 2017 — Russia’s Central Electoral Commission bars him from running for president over his conviction in the Kirovles case, a move condemned by the EU as casting “serious doubt” on the election.
July 2019 — Members of Navalny’s team, along with other opposition activists, are barred from running for Moscow city council, sparking protests that are violently dispersed, with thousands arrested. Navalny’s team responds by promoting the “Smart Voting” strategy, encouraging the election of any candidate except those from the Kremlin’s United Russia party. The strategy works, with the party losing its majority.
2020 — Navalny seeks to deploy the Smart Voting strategy during regional elections in September and tours Siberia as part of the effort.
Aug. 20, 2020 — On a flight from the city of Tomsk, where he was working with local activists, Navalny falls ill and the plane makes an emergency landing in nearby Omsk. Hospitalized in a coma, Navalny’s team suspects he was poisoned.
Aug. 22, 2020 — A comatose Navalny is flown to a hospital in Berlin.
Aug. 24, 2020 — German authorities confirm Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent. After he recovers, he blames the Kremlin, an accusation denied by Russian officials.
Jan. 17, 2021 — After five months in Germany, Navalny is arrested upon his return to Russia, with authorities alleging his recuperation abroad violated the terms of his suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case. His arrest triggers some of the biggest protests in Russia in years. Thousands are arrested.
Feb. 2, 2021 — A Moscow court orders Navalny to serve 2 ½ years in prison for his parole violation. While in prison, Navalny stages a three-week hunger strike to protest a lack of medical treatment and sleep deprivation.
June 2021 — A Moscow court outlaws Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and about 40 regional offices as extremist, shutting down his political network. Close associates and team members face prosecution and leave Russia under pressure. Navalny maintains contact with his lawyers and team from prison, and they update his social media accounts.
Feb. 24, 2022 — Russia invades Ukraine. Navalny condemns the war in social media posts from prison and during his court appearances.
March 22, 2022 — Navalny is sentenced to an additional nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court in a case his supporters rejected as fabricated. He is transferred to a maximum-security prison in Russia’s western Vladimir region.
July 2022 — Navalny’s team announces the relaunch of the Anti-Corruption Foundation as an international organization with an advisory board including Francis Fukuyama, Anne Applebaum, and the European Parliament member and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Navalny continues to file lawsuits in prison and tries to form a labor union in the facility. Officials respond by regularly placing him in solitary confinement over purported disciplinary violations such as failing to properly button his garment or to wash his face at a specified time.
2023 — Over 400 Russian doctors sign an open letter to Putin, urging an end to what it calls abuse of Navalny, following reports that he was denied basic medication after getting the flu. His team expresses concern about his health, saying in April he had acute stomach pain and suspected he was being slowly poisoned.
March 12, 2023 — “Navalny,” a film about the attempt on the opposition leader’s life, wins the Oscar for best documentary feature.
April 26, 2023 — Appearing on a video link from prison during a hearing, Navalny says he was facing new extremism and terrorism charges that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. He adds sardonically that the charges imply that “I’m conducting terror attacks while sitting in prison.”
June 19, 2023 — The trial begins in a makeshift courtroom in the Penal Colony No. 6 where Navalny is held. Soon after it starts, the judge closes the trial to the public and media despite Navalny’s objections.
July 20, 2023 — In closing arguments, the prosecution asks the court to sentence Navalny to 20 years in prison, his team reports. Navalny says in a subsequent statement that he expects his sentence to be “huge … a Stalinist term,” referring to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Aug. 4, 2023 — Navalny is convicted of extremism and sentenced to 19 years, and he says he understands he’s “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime.”
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, 2nd left, and his lawyers Alexander Fedulov, left, Olga Mikhailova, right, and Vadim Kobzev, second right, are seen on a TV screen standing among his lawyers, as he appears in a video link provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, during a hearing in the colony, in Melekhovo, Vladimir region, about 260 kilometers (163 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. (AP Photo, File)
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, 2nd left, and his lawyers Alexander Fedulov, left, Olga Mikhailova, right, and Vadim Kobzev, second right, are seen on a TV screen standing among his lawyers, as he appears in a video link provided by the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, during a hearing in the colony, in Melekhovo, Vladimir region, about 260 kilometers (163 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, on Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. (AP Photo, File)
Oct. 13, 2023 — Authorities detain three lawyers representing Navalny after searching their homes, and his ally Ivan Zhdanov says on social media the move is a bid to “completely isolate Navalny.” The raids targeting Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser are part of a criminal case on charges of participating in an extremist group, Zhdanov says. Navalny’s spokesperson says if the opposition leader has no access to lawyers, “he will end up in complete isolation, the kind no one can really even imagine.”
Dec. 2, 2023 — New charges are filed against Navalny. In comments passed to associates, Navalny says he has been charged under Article 214 of the penal code, covering vandalism. “I don’t even know whether to describe my latest news as sad, funny or absurd,” he writes on social media via his team. “I have no idea what Article 214 is, and there’s nowhere to look. You’ll know before I do.”
Dec. 7, 2023 — Navalny’s team erects billboards across Russia featuring QR codes that lead smartphones to a hidden website urging Russians to take part in a campaign against Putin, who is expected to run for reelection in March 2024. Navalny’s team say the vote is important for Putin as a referendum on his war in Ukraine, rather than a real contest for the presidency.
Dec. 11, 2023 — Navalny is scheduled to appear in court via video link but does not appear, and his spokeswoman says prison officials are citing electricity problems. Navalny’s allies express concern, saying neither they nor his lawyers have heard from him in several weeks.
Dec. 25, 2023 — Navalny’s allies say he’s been located in a prison colony in the town of Kharp, north of the Arctic Circle, notorious for long and severe winters. It’s about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were among the harshest of the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system.
Jan. 10 — Navalny appears via video link from Kharp for the first time. Russian news outlets release images of him in black prison garb and with a buzz cut, on a live TV feed from the “special regime” penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. At the hearing, Navalny cracks jokes about Arctic weather and asks if officials at his former prison threw a party when he was transferred.
Feb. 16 — Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service says Navalny died in prison at the age of 47. It says he felt unwell after a walk and collapsed. An ambulance arrived but could not resuscitate him. Navalny’s team says it has no confirmation of his death and that his lawyer is on the way to the Kharp penal colony.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised Friday to work with Iraq to ensure no resurgence of the Islamic State group after Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow in neighbouring Syria.
On a regional tour devoted to a suddenly-changed Syria, the top US diplomat flew to Baghdad from the Turkish capital Ankara and headed into talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
Blinken said he told Sudani of “our commitment to working with Iraq on security and always working for Iraq’s sovereignty, to make sure that that is strengthened and preserved”.
“I think this is a moment as well for Iraq to reinforce its own sovereignty as well as its stability, security and success going forward,” Blinken said.
He added that “no one knows the importance” more than Iraq of stability in Syria and avoiding the resurgence of Islamic State group (IS) jihadists, also known by the Arabic acronym Daesh.
“We are determined to make sure that Daesh cannot re-emerge,” Blinken said.
“The United States (and) Iraq, together had tremendous success in taking away the territorial caliphate that Daesh had created years ago.”
The Islamic State group (IS) overran large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, proclaiming its “caliphate” and launching a reign of terror.
It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition, and in 2019 lost the last territory it held in Syria to US-backed Kurdish forces.
Iraq is keen to prevent any spread of chaos from Syria, where on Sunday Islamist-led rebels toppled the five-decade rule of the Assad dynasty following a lightning offensive.
Sudani, in his meeting with Blinken, “underscored the necessity of ensuring the representation of all components of the Syrian people in managing the country to bolster its stability,” Sudani’s office said.
He stressed Iraq “expects tangible actions, not just words” from Syria’s transitional authorities, and “emphasised the importance of preventing any aggression on Syrian territories by any party”.
After taking a helicopter into central Baghdad, Blinken also complimented Iraq on a construction boom, saying it showed growing success.
US TROOPS
Iraq’s government has urged respect for the “free will” of all Syrians and the country’s territorial integrity after Assad’s fall.
The deposed Syrian leader hailed from a rival faction of the Baath party of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, ousted in a 2003 US-led invasion.
The United States maintains about 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 more in Syria as part of a campaign to prevent IS resurgence.
President Joe Biden’s administration has agreed with Iraq to end the coalition’s military presence by September 2025 but stopped short of a complete withdrawal of the US forces, whose presence has been opposed by Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq.
President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month and has long been sceptical of US troop deployments, although it remains unclear whether he would backtrack from Biden’s agreement or change tactics in light of developments in Syria.
Last Saturday, the day before rebels took control of Damascus, Trump on his Truth Social platform called Syria “a mess,” and added: “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.”
Blinken has pushed for an “inclusive” political process to bring an accountable government to Syria and avoid sectarian bloodletting of the sort seen in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.
In Baghdad, he said he spoke with Sudani about the conviction of many countries that “as Syria transitions from the Assad dictatorship to hopefully a democracy, it does so in a way that… protects all of the minorities in Syria, that produces an inclusive, non-sectarian government and does not become in any way a platform for terrorism”.
Speaking in Jordan on Thursday, Blinken said all regional players he had spoken to “agreed on the need to have a unified approach to advance many of our shared interests” in Syria.
Turkey strongly opposes the US alliance with Syrian Kurdish fighters, who assist the United States with the fight against the Islamic State group but whom Ankara links to outlawed Kurdish separatists at home.
Israel in turn has been pounding Syria, decimating military sites across its historic adversary after a deadly campaign against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, aiming in part to curb the regional influence of Tehran which had allied itself with Assad.
Thousands of jubilant Syrians converged on Damascus’s landmark Umayyad Mosque for Friday prayers, waving opposition flags and chanting — a sight unimaginable a week ago before rebels ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
Families with children mixed with armed and uniformed Islamist fighters to celebrate the first Friday prayers since Assad’s overthrow, later streaming into the Old City’s streets and squares.
The scenes were reminiscent of the early days of the 2011 uprising, when pro-democracy protesters in Syrian cities would take to the streets after Friday prayers — but not in the capital Damascus, long an Assad clan stronghold.
Former rebel fighters allowed women and children to pose with their assault rifles for celebratory photos, as relieved citizens milled around the square before the mosque, a place of worship since the Iron Age and the city’s greatest mosque since the eighth century.
“We are gathering because we’re happy Syria has been freed, we’re happy to have been liberated from the prison in which we lived,” said Nour Thi al-Ghina, 38.
“This is the first time we have converged in such big numbers and the first time we are seeing such an event,” she said, beaming with joy.
“We never expected this to happen.”
Rebel fighter Mohammed Shobek, 30, came to the city with the victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS), and posed for pictures with local children with a rose in the barrel of his Kalashnikov assault rifle.
“We’ve finished the war in Syria and started praying for peace, we started carrying flowers, we started building this country and building it hand in hand,” he told AFP.
In 2011, Assad’s crackdown on peaceful protesters triggered a 13-year civil war that tore Syria apart, killing more than half a million people and displacing millions more.
‘SYRIAN PEOPLE IS ONE’
Exhilarated crowds chanted: “One, one, one, the Syrian people is one!”
Many held the Syrian independence flag, used by the opposition since the uprising began.
Dozens of street vendors around the mosque were selling the three-star flags — which none would dare to raise in government-held areas during Assad’s iron-fisted rule.
Pictures of people who were disappeared or detained in Assad’s prisons hung on the mosque’s outer walls, the phone numbers of relatives inscribed on the images.
At the core of the system Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centres used to eliminate dissent by jailing those suspected of stepping away from the ruling Baath party line.
War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in 2022 that more than 100,000 people had died in the prisons since 2011.
Earlier Friday, the leader of the Islamist rebels that took power, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — who now uses his given name Ahmed al-Sharaa — had urged people to take to the streets to celebrate “the victory of the revolution”.
Last month, rebel forces led by Jolani’s HTS launched a lightning offensive, seizing Damascus and ousting Assad in less than two weeks.
The group has now named one of its own, Mohammad al-Bashir, as interim prime minister in a post-war transitional government until March 1. On Friday he addressed worshippers at the Umayyad Mosque.
‘VICTORY OF THE REVOLUTION’
Omar al-Khaled, 23, said he had rushed from HTS’s northwestern stronghold of Idlib, cut off from government areas for years, to see the capital for the first time in his life.
“It was my dream to come to Damascus,” the tailor said.
“I can’t describe my feelings. Our morale is very high and we hope that Syria will head towards a better future,” he said, adding: “People were stifled… but now the doors have opened to us.”
On Thursday, the interim government vowed to institute the “rule of law” after years of abuses under Assad.
Amani Zanhur, a 42-year-old professor of computer engineering, said many of her students had disappeared in Assad’s prisons and that she was overjoyed to be attending the prayers in the new Syria.
“There can be nothing worse than what was. We cannot fear the situation,” she told AFP, expressing support for a state based on Islamic teachings.
Thousands flocked to the nearby Umayyad Square, raising a huge rebel flag on its landmark sword monument and chanting.
“Let’s not discuss details that might separate us now and focus only on what brings us together: our hatred for Bashar al-Assad,” said Amina Maarawi, 42, an Islamic preacher wearing a white hijab.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has ordered the military to “prepare to remain” throughout the winter in the UN-patrolled buffer zone that is supposed to separate Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights.
Israel seized the demilitarised zone on the strategic plateau on Sunday, just hours after Syrian rebels swept president Bashar al-Assad from power.
The move drew international condemnation including from the United Nations, although close ally the United States on Thursday said it was consistent with Israel’s right to self-defence.
The peacekeeping force UNDOF said in a statement on Friday it had informed Israel it was in “violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement”, referring to the armistice between Syria and Israel that created the buffer zone.
Since Assad’s fall, the Israeli military has also launched hundreds of strikes against Syrian military sites, targeting everything from chemical weapons stores to air defences to prevent them from falling into rebel hands.
The deployment in the buffer zone comes with Israeli forces still withdrawing from southern Lebanon after fighting Hezbollah militants for months and with the war in Gaza against Palestinian militants ongoing.
“Due to the situation in Syria, it is of critical security importance to maintain our presence at the summit of Mount Hermon, and everything must be done to ensure the (army’s) readiness on-site to enable the fighters to stay there despite the challenging weather conditions,” Katz’s spokesman said in a statement on Friday.
‘VACUUM ON ISRAEL’S BORDER’
Israel has said it seized the buffer zone to defend itself.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday that the collapse of Assad’s rule had created a “vacuum on Israel’s border”.
“This deployment is temporary until a force that is committed to the 1974 agreement can be established and security on our border can be guaranteed.”
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
It held onto the territory during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and in 1981 annexed the area in a move since recognised only by the United States.
On Thursday, UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned Israel’s seizure of the buffer zone.
Guterres “is deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“The secretary-general is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli air strikes on several locations in Syria.”
Guterres urged the end of “all unauthorised presence in the area of separation and refraining from any action that would undermine the ceasefire and stability in Golan,” Dujarric said.
UNDOF on Friday said its forces “remain at their positions” and “continue to carry out their mandated activities”.
The Israeli military said that troops were conducting “defensive missions” in the buffer and beyond while also “strengthening” a barrier on the armistice line.
UNDOF said the Israeli army has been “constructing counter-mobility obstacles since July 2024”.
‘TEMPTATION TO STAY’
The United States has called for the Israeli incursion to be “temporary” although on Thursday National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the incursion was “logical and consistent with Israel’s right to self-defence”.
Michael Horowitz, an expert on regional geopolitics at the Middle East-based security consultancy Le Beck, said he expected Israeli forces to remain in the zone for several months carrying out “surveillance missions”.
“The duration of the Israeli operation will depend on the stability and intention of the new Syrian regime,” he told AFP.
Although Syria’s new rulers have sent conciliatory messages internationally, Israel is not ready to take any risks, he said.
“There is also the specific question of Mount Hermon, a strategic point as it dominates three countries,” Lebanon, Syria and Israel, Horowitz said.
“In the current chaos, and given the composition of the Israeli government, I believe the temptation will be very strong to stay on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, even in the longer term.”
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