Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is dead, according to reports from Russia. The family cannot confirm this yet, but they cannot refute the news either. His wife made it clear at the Munich Security Conference: her hope dies last.
The question has been looming for years: How long will Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny stand up to the Russian regime? Now the prison authorities report: The opposition activist died in a Siberian penal colony. Navalny’s team and his family have not yet confirmed the news. His wife, Julia Navalnaya, did not reject the report in her speech at the Munich Security Conference, but expressed clear doubts. “I don’t know whether we should believe the terrible news that we receive exclusively from Russian state sources,” she said on Friday in her short-term speech in Bavaria. “We cannot believe Putin and Putin’s government,” she added. “You always lie.”
Julia Navalnaya appeared composed during her appearance, but at times she fought back tears. She had previously considered whether she should fly back to her children in light of the news. Then she asked herself: “What would Alexei have done? In my place? And I’m absolutely sure he would have stayed here. He would have spoken to you from this place.”
If the news is true, Putin will have to answer for her husband’s death, she said, visibly tense. He and his allies should be “punished for what they have done to our country, to my family and to my husband.” The day when they would be held accountable would soon come. At the end of her almost two-minute speech, Yulia Navalnaya called on the international community and the listeners in the security conference hall “to unite and fight evil.”
Navalny is a disruptive factor for the Kremlin
Navalny, Kremlin chief Putin’s main opponent, had long been considered doomed to death. Now he collapsed after a walk and attempts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, it was said. Navalny’s team has long been accusing the Kremlin of wanting to kill the opposition leader. In 2020 he barely survived an attack with the chemical weapon Novichok.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has now blamed Moscow for the death of the prominent opposition politician. The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted angrily and accused the USA of making “blanket accusations”. “The death of a human being is always a tragedy,” it said in a statement on Friday. “Instead of blanket accusations, one should exercise restraint and wait for the official results of the forensic medical examination.”
For the Kremlin, Navalny was seen as a nuisance and disruptive factor even in the prison camp because he called for protests against Putin ahead of the presidential election, which was scheduled to take place in exactly a month. His family was horrified by the news. Navalny’s mother Lyudmila said she visited her son this week and found him “alive, healthy and full of life.”
Source: Stern
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