It is exactly one year since Alexei Navalny, Russia’s best-known opposition leader and anti-corruption activist, was murdered in an Arctic penal colony by Vladimir Putin’s regime. Countless other political opponents, critics and dissidents have been killed, jailed or exiled since Putin first became president 25 years ago.
All vestiges of an open society, democratic accountability, independent media and free speech in Russia have been eviscerated in that time. Accused of war crimes in Ukraine, which he invaded three years ago this month, Putin poses an undeniable threat to Europe and Britain – as well as to his own people. Yet this is the man with whom Donald Trump now wants to be friends.
Navalny’s fate was terrible, and instructive. No radical, he tried to reform Russia from within. His Anti-Corruption Foundation published factual investigations into official wrongdoing. He ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013. But increased prominence brought increased persecution, and he was barred from the 2018 presidential election. More than anything, perhaps, he was a patriot, principled, charismatic, popular and humorous – everything Putin is not. In 2020 Navalny almost died, poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent. In 2021, he was rearrested, jailed, removed to the Polar Wolf Arctic camp, isolated, silenced and killed.
The illegitimate victor of numerous gerrymandered elections, Putin felt so threatened by Navalny during the latter’s lifetime that he would not say his name in public. With its habitual lies, the Kremlin denied any responsibility for his death. The official cause, typically cruel and mocking, was given as “sudden death syndrome”. Navalny was 47. And yet Putin did not feel any more secure. New crackdowns on opposition figures followed, at home and abroad.
Yulia Navalnaya has taken up her husband’s cause, bravely leading protest campaigns in exile. Last July, she was charged with “extremism”, a potential death penalty offence. In March last year, Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s former chief of staff, was badly beaten in Vilnius, Lithuania.
At home, Amnesty International reports, government critics routinely face “arbitrary prosecution, lengthy prison terms, violent attacks committed with impunity, and other reprisals”. An anti-war activist, Aleksei Gorinov, received an additional three-year jail sentence in November. A journalist, Natalya Filonova, who opposes conscription, has suffered ever harsher jail conditions since 2022. Amnesty is demanding their release. Yet they are two among many detained for exercising their human rights.
Putin’s killing sprees date back at least to his genocidal campaign against Chechen separatists in the early 2000s. They include the murders of the ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, the investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya and the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. Out-of-favour Russian oligarchs and businessmen frequently expire in mysterious circumstances. Soon after the Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin challenged his boss, he died in an unexplained plane crash. Yet Putin’s biggest homicidal exploits are geopolitical: his 2008 invasion of Georgia, 2014 annexation of Crimea, 2015 intervention in Syria – and Ukraine, again, in 2022. Many tens of thousands have died.
When Trump calls Putin a “genius” who exhibits great “common sense”, does he understand – does he care – that he is dealing with a ruthless killer? When, shattering the western consensus that Putin is an aggressor to be repulsed at all costs, Trump proposes a chummy tete-a-tete on Ukraine, does he have any idea how he is manipulated by this cynical ex-KGB thug? Does JD Vance, Trump’s ignorant vice-president, realise what a dangerous game he plays when he flirts with Europe’s pro-Putin neofascist far right? It seems not. Navalny would put them straight. Except he’s dead.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
