The Kremlin’s number one opponent, Alexeï Navalny, died on Friday, according to the authorities, in his Arctic prison, a death which comes one month before the presidential election which should once again cement the power of Vladimir Putin.
His disappearance at the age of 47 after three years of detention and a poisoning for which he accused the government deprives an already bloodless opposition of its figurehead, the Russian authorities having orchestrated a merciless repression of all his detractors, particularly since the start of the he assault on Ukraine two years ago.
The opponent’s wife, Yulia Navalnaïa, called on the international community to hold Vladimir Putin “personally responsible” for the death of her husband.
“If this is the truth, I would like Putin, his entire staff, his entire entourage, his entire government, his friends, to know that they will be punished for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband. They will be brought to justice and that day will come soon,” she said, holding back tears from the podium of the Munich Security Conference.
The Russian authorities have provided almost no details on the conditions of Alexeï Navalny’s death, limiting themselves to a terse press release to ensure that they have done everything to resuscitate this man whose health was weakened by his poisoning and his imprisonment, after feeling unwell. .
“On February 16, 2024, in penitentiary center No. 3, prisoner Navalny AA felt unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness,” the FSIN (Russian Prison Service) of the Yamal Arctic region said, assuring that emergency services had tried to save him.
“All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out but did not give a positive result. Emergency doctors pronounced the patient dead. The causes of death are being established,” he said in this press release.
The hospital next to the prison, in the town of Labytnangui, assured that rescuers were sent to the scene within seven minutes after the prison camp was called.
“The doctors who arrived on site continued the resuscitation operations that had already been carried out by the prison doctors. They chased them for more than 30 minutes. However, the patient died,” he told Russian news agencies.
The state news agency Ria Novosti reported on Friday that Alexei Navalny had participated by video the day before in two court hearings in the Vladimir region and had not complained about his health.
His mother, Lyoudmila Navalnaïa, claimed to have seen her son on February 12 in his penal colony and that he was then “in good health and in a happy mood”, according to a message on Facebook cited by the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Relatives not informed
Alexeï Navalny was serving a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism” in a remote Arctic colony, in very difficult conditions. The multiple trials brought against him had been widely denounced as political and a way of punishing him for his opposition to Vladimir Putin.
The opponent’s supporters were not informed of his death in prison, said his spokesperson Kira Iarmich, specifying that one of their lawyers was going there.
The Russian head of state, traveling in the Urals on Friday, “is informed”, declared his spokesperson Dmitri Peskov, but did not react.
He added that the prison service was carrying out “verifications” and “clarifications” on the cause of death.
Russian television reported the death in a short story shortly after the Rossiya 24 channel broadcast, apparently delayed, a question-and-answer session with students and workers alongside Mr. Putin at during a factory visit.
At various hearings in trials in which he participated by video in recent months, Alexeï Navalny, a tall blond with piercing blue eyes, appeared thin and aged.
Trudeau calls Putin a “monster”
The news of the death of Alexei Navalny is tragic and devastating. He tirelessly defended democracy and freedom in Russia, and his courage was incomparable.
Let’s be clear: he simply should never have been imprisoned. It is important that these events…— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) February 16, 2024
Poisoned in 2020
He had a series of health problems linked to a hunger strike and the poisoning he suffered in 2020 and which he miraculously survived.
In Western countries, many people immediately denounced the responsibility of Russian power in his death.
“Russia is responsible,” insisted American Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
French President Emmanuel Macron accused the Kremlin of “sentenced to death” “free spirits”. The UN said it was “outraged” and called for an “end to persecution” in Russia.
“It is obvious to me that (Alexei Navalny) was killed like thousands of others who were tortured to death because of one person, Putin,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a conference joint press conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
Mr. Scholz judged that he had “paid for his courage with his life” while the EU holds “the Russian regime” “solely responsible” for the tragedy.
Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner and editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Dmitry Muratov, called Navalny’s death a “murder.”
Russian diplomacy, for its part, brushed aside the “blatant accusations” from the United States and the president of the Duma even judged that Navalny’s death “benefited” the West.
Prison had not dampened Alexeï Navalny’s determination. During the hearings of his various trials and in messages broadcast through his team, he never stopped insulting Vladimir Putin.
In his trial for “extremism”, he castigated “the stupidest and most senseless war of the 21st century”, referring to the Russian offensive in Ukraine. In his messages, he was ironic about the bullying that the prison administration subjected him to.
“Hope is dead”
In Moscow, young people interviewed by AFP said they were distraught after his death.
Valeria, a 28-year-old tourist guide, believes that Alexei Navalny was “a symbol of hope for a better future for Russia”. “I feel like with his death, that hope dies too.”
In a message on 1er February broadcast by his team on social networks, the opponent had called for demonstrations throughout Russia during the presidential election scheduled to take place from March 15 to 17 and which should allow Vladimir Putin to remain in power.
Opponents have been imprisoned or driven into exile in recent years and repression has increased further since the start of the assault in Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022.
One of the best known among them is Vladimir Kara-Mourza, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence and was poisoned twice. He suffers from serious health problems in detention.
Another opponent with a certain notoriety is Ilia Iachine. He was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for denouncing “the murder of civilians” in the Ukrainian town of Boutcha, near kyiv.
Other critics of Mr. Putin have been murdered. Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed near the Kremlin in February 2015, an assassination whose mastermind has never been identified.
The opposition includes other figures but they have gone into exile, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oil tycoon, who spent ten years in prison after opposing Mr. Putin in the early 2000s.