Alexei Navalny, Russia’s top opposition leader and President Putin’s fiercest foe, died in prison on Friday, a statement from the Federal Penitentiary Service said.
Navalny, was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, felt unwell after a walk and collapsed. He was moved in December from his previous prison in central Russia to a “special regime” penal colony – one of the highest security level prisons in Russia, above the Arctic Circle.
Navalny: From Kremlin’s biggest foe to Russia’s most important Political Prisoner
Navalny was born on June 4, 1976 in western part of Moscow. Graduating form RUDN university in 1997 where he majored in law and got his degree in the field of economics in 2001 while working as a lawyer.
In 2004, he began a movement against rampant overdevelopment in the capital, creating his own campaign website. He gains notoriety for alleging corruption in state run corporations in 2008, exposing gas giant Gazprom and oil behemoth Rosneft using his extensive internet presence and blog popularity.
In 2010, he founded RosPil, an anti-corruption project run by a well-qualified team of lawyers that analyses expenditure of state agencies and companies, exposing loopholes and violations and contesting them in court.
After that in 2011, Alexei establishes the Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which will become his core team’s main platform for exposing alleged graft among Russia’s top political and bureaucratic ranks.
Later that year in December, Navalny while participating 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 begin with mass protests on the streets of Moscow and regions near it following President Putin’s re-election. Alexei accuses key figures like deputy PM Igor Shuvalov and Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov of corruption.
3 months later in July, Navalny was charged with embezzlement by Russia’s Investigative Committee involving Kirovles, a state-owned timber enterprise in the regions of Kirov – Navalny rejects the allegations terming it as politically motivated.
In December, the committee launches a new probe into alleged embezzlement at an Alexei linked Russian subsidiary of Yves Rocher, a French cosmetics brand. He again denied the allegation providing the same reason as previous.
Navalny’s run for mayoral elections
Although being charged with embezzlement, Navalny ran for mayor in Moscow in 2013, a move encouraged by Russian authorities in order to out a veneer of democracy on the race that will boost the profile of incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, who was backed by Putin.
Same year in July, the court convicted Navalny of embezzlement in the Kirovles case and sentencing him to 5 years in prison. The prosecution petitions to release Navalny from custody pending his appeal so that he can resume his campaign.
However, he didn’t win the elections but came second behind Sobyanin, capturing 27% of votes after a successful fundraising campaign with collection almost 97.3 million Rubles from his supporters.
In October 2013, a court granted Navalny a suspended sentence in the Kirovles case.
February next year, Navalny was placed under house arrest in connection with the Yves Rocher case and he was banned from using the internet, cutting all his influence with the public. Although his blogs were continuously uploaded by his team, covering details of corruptions by Russian officials.
December 2014 comes out as scripted scenario in which Navalny and his brother, Oleg were founded guilty in the Yves Rocher case, Navalny received a 3 ½ year suspended sentence, while his brother was handed a prison term, both of them appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
After a year in 2015, a YouTube documentary called “Chaika”, meaning “seagull” in Russian was uploaded by Navalny’s foundation. The 44-minute-long video accused Prosecutor General Yury Chaika of corruption and alleged ties to a notorious criminal group, which got 26 million views on the platform.
In February 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia is in violation of Navalny’s rights to a fair trial in Kirovles case, ordering the government to pay his legal costs and damages.
Later that year, Navalny announced that he will be running for the Russian presidential elections in 2018 against Putin.
March 2017- Navalny releases a YouTube documentary accusing then PM Dmitry Medvedev of corruption, the video got over 7 million views in its first week. A series of protests across Russia draw thousands and there were mass arrests, he was also jailed several times for unauthorized demonstrations during his campaign tours.
In April, a unidentified assailant throws a green disinfectant in his face that damaged his right eye.
Russian Electoral Commission bars him from contesting elections for president over his conviction in Kirovles case. This incident is dated to December, 2017.
2020- Navalny sought to deploy the Smart Voting Strategy during regional elections
Navalny falls ill on a flight from the city of Tomsk, the plane makes an emergency landing in nearby Omsk. His team suspects he was poisoned. He was hospitalized in Berlin where it was confirmed that he was indeed poisoned with a soviet era nerve agent.
He flew back to Russia in 2021 after his miraculous recovery, where Navalny was arrested by the authorities alleging his recuperation abroad violated the terms of his suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case. The arrest triggers some of the biggest protests in Russia, thousands were arrested.
In June 2021, his foundation was ousted as outlaws and about 40 regional offices were declared extremist, shutting down his political networks and his close associates and team members were forced to leave Russia under pressure.
Feb 24, 2022: Russia begins its special security mission in Ukraine, the act was condemned on social media by Navalny from inside the prison and his court appearances. In response he was sentenced to a 9-year prison sentence for embezzlement and contempt of court.
2023, more than 400 Russian doctors sign an open letter to Putin, following reports that he was denied basic medication after getting the flu. It was suspected that he was slowing being poisoned in the prison.
July,2023 the prosecution asked the court to sentence Navalny to 20 years in prison, to which the court convicts him of extremism and sentenced to 19 years to which he said he’s “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime.”
In Dec 25, 2023, his allies say he’s been located in a prison colony in the town of Kharp, north of Arctic which is about 100 km from Vorkuta.
Jan 10 – Navalny appears through a video from Kharp for the very first time, at the hearing, he cracks jokes about the extreme weather of Arctic and asks if the former prison threw a party after his relocation.
Feb 16, 2024: 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 was called but it could not resuscitate him. His team said they have no confirmation of his death and his team of lawyers are on the way to the Kharp penal colony.
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