Alexei Navalny was one of the first to come out in support of Pussy Riot after our arrest in 2012. His birthday congratulations telegram arrived at my prison faster than anyone else’s. Laughing at enemies, loving life, he was full of vitality. On 16 February, he was killed in the Polar Wolf penal colony north of the Arctic Circle.
The loudest, clearest and brightest voice against Vladimir Putin’s regime has been murdered, despicably, out of sight. Before his murder, he was tortured for three years; a third of this time was spent in solitary confinement without proper food and clothing. Navalny was killed a month before the so-called “elections”. Putin killed him, just as he killed Boris Nemtsov. He killed both out of envy – envy for the people’s love, which he, a petty tyrant from the KGB, will never enjoy.
It is meant as a signal – we killed the most famous of you, so now it’s not a problem to kill every political prisoner in Russia, one by one – every one of you who is against Putin and against the war. It is a signal to the west from Putin – you can’t touch us; we will kill Russians who do not agree with us, and we will bomb and kill Ukrainians. And the most you can do in response? Be deeply concerned.
I remember the day so well, 17 January 2021, when Navalny returned to Russia. How we went to the airport, how we later tried to get to the Kremlin, how we were detained, how people around us were beaten and their Covid masks ripped off. How those white masks with blood spatters lay in the dirty snow. And how this demonstration turned into a cluster of criminal cases, a wide variety of people, including myself, becoming the accused.
The time for onlookers to be “deeply concerned” is over. Deep concern is not enough. Asking for a full investigation into the circumstances of Navalny’s death is not enough. Calls to release political prisoners are not enough. We need action.
A war is happening. But even talking of the “war” can lead to a prison term because of Russia’s military censorship. During two years of full-scale war, not a single person who has spoken out against the war, who has spoken out against Putin, has been exchanged in a prisoner swap with the west. Alexei Gorinov, an opposition councillor who was one of the first to be sentenced under the new rules about criticising the war in Ukraine, is still in prison. So are Ilya Yashin, Aleksandra Skochilenko, Bogdan Ziza, Artyom Kamardin, Alexei Moskalev, Evgenia Berkovich, Svetlana Petriychuk and many others. Earlier this month, UK ministers ruled out a prisoner swap for the opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, despite fears for his life growing after Navalny’s death. Navalny himself was due to be sent to Germany in a swap prior to his murder, according to his ally Maria Pevchikh.
Since 24 February 2022 there have been 19,855 arrests for an anti-war stance; 8,526 cases of “discrediting the army” and “false information”; 835 people imprisoned for an anti-war position. Over these years, many more have passed through this repressive regime. Some did not survive, some took their own lives after their release, and some went to fight – to stop Putin from seizing new territories and turning them into torturous meat grinders, into gulags.
People ask me who will act as opposition in Russia now that Navalny is dead. The burden is placed on those left in Russia to figure out how to get rid of Putin under conditions of military censorship – conditions in which Russians who speak out against this war, against Putin, are imprisoned, tortured and killed. Meanwhile, in the midst of war in 2023, EU countries bought 40% more Russian gas than in the prewar period. In January, Apple paid a 1.18bn rouble (£10.02m) antitrust fine into Russia’s state budget. This month, a man came to Russia from the US to interview Putin, and to shoot a video about the clean Moscow Metro and the admirable lack of homeless people in the city. Do you know what else tends to get cleaned in Russia, Tucker Carlson? The cameras after one of Putin’s executions.
I am often asked what future awaits Russia. A man who brought flowers in memory of Navalny had a gun put to his head and was asked where he bought the flowers, who did Crimea belong to, and if he was gay. This happened in Surgut in Siberia – and we don’t even know what is happening to people in the occupied territories.
When Navalny was murdered many people in Russia felt their hope had died with him. Therefore it is vital that we support Yulia Navalnaya, who announced that she would continue fighting for her husband’s cause. She asked us not only to share in her grief, but in her anger.
If evil is not stopped in time, it flourishes. To have a Russia without Putin, we need to stop him together. We all build the future, every day. The people of Russia don’t demand that people in the west sacrifice their lives as Navalny did; we ask that you save the lives of the people who are left. We ask you to fight with us for those who are in prison for telling the truth. To stop buying Russian commodities such as oil and gas – they are fuel for future murders. Give Ukraine as many weapons as it needs, otherwise this vile and cowardly war will continue to grow, destroying all that is alive in the occupied territories. And unite! We call for you to unite. Putin has found allies in North Korea and Iran and this coalition of totalitarian regimes is dangerous for everyone – not just Ukraine.
To overcome Russia, we need to work together, not be silent and not be afraid. And we should do it in memory of those who gave their lives in the fight against this evil.
Masha Alekhina is a Pussy Riot activist
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