Alexei Navalny, One of the Kremlin’s Most Vocal Critics, Has Died | WSJ

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, has died at age 47 while serving a sentence of more than 30 years on multiple charges. The anticorruption activist was one of the Kremlin’s most vocal critics. Despite being barred from challenging President Vladimir Putin at the ballot box, he galvanized Russia’s political opposition. Navalny’s death comes after Putin announced that he planned to run for re-election in 2024. A move that could keep him in power until at least 2030. Navalny broke onto the Russian political scene in 2012, becoming a key leader of a broad protest movement against the Kremlin and

Putin’s decision to return to the presidency after serving four years as Prime Minister Those protests failed. And so in the years that followed, Navalny focused on his anticorruption foundation which carried out investigations into the pro-Kremlin elite. His youtube videos, usually detailing the corruption of Russia’s elite, set him apart from other opposition figures and gave him a platform to reach and mobilize Russians across the country. This earned him a number of enemies and Russian authorities branded his foundation as an extremist group. Navalny was arrested several times including for alleged embezzlement. Charges he denied. His convictions thwarted

his plans to challenge Putin in the 2018 presidential elections, making him unable to run. In 2020, e led a campaign against a series of constitutional

amendments including a provision to allow Putin to rule until 2036. The same year, Navalny fell ill on board a flight to Moscow. He was evacuated to Germany where scientists said he had been poisoned by the nerve agent novichok. Navalny and his supporters blamed Russian authorities for the attack and the US formally accused the Kremlin of carrying out an assassination attempt. Russian authorities have rejected the accusations. Navalny returned to Russia in

2021 and was detained upon his arrival for what the Russian Federal Prison service said were repeated violations of his probation. He would never leave custody again. In prison, Navalny complained about poor treatment and staged hunger strikes. Despite being locked up, Navalny continued to be a vocal critic of the Kremlin. At the end of 2023, Navalny’s aides and lawyers said they had lost contact with the jailed politician, stirring up concerns for his well being. He surfaced almost three weeks later after being transferred to a prison colony known as the Polar Wolf located in a remote Arctic

region of Russia. Navalny’s allies said the move was designed to try to silence him.