Five months after FSB security service officers attempted to kill him with a Novichok-class nerve agent (the same type used against British citizens in 2018), Alexei Navalny has returned to Russia. Will he ever leave prison alive?
Perhaps, perhaps not. The opposition journalist was arrested as soon as he reached passport control in Moscow. Held on a probation breach related to embezzlement charges (charges dreamt up by the Kremlin), Navalny will be imprisoned pending a court hearing.
Navalny is taking a huge risk. The investigative journalist knows that his return to Russia is both a political and a personal challenge to Putin’s authority. The Russian president had wanted Navalny killed but failing that, Putin expected his nemesis to remain in Germany. Returning home, Navalny has proved to Putin and all Russians that he will not yield. The degree to which Navalny is challenging Putin’s cultivated public primacy of power; as the man who decides who wins office or loses power, who becomes rich or poor, who is imprisoned or left free, who lives and dies, is extraordinary. For the Russian leader, who is more insecure than commonly understood, Navalny’s return is a thinly veiled one-finger salute. In Russia’s hardy culture, even Navalny’s opponents will nod in respect of his courage here.
Now, Putin faces a hard choice. Does he allow Navalny to be released, able to advance his popularity with new corruption reports? Or does Putin keep Navalny imprisoned indefinitely, risking his growing status as a political martyr? Does Putin have Navalny thrown off a prison balcony or suffer an unexpected heart attack? Killing Navalny, even under a pretense of accidental cause, would make western sanctions far more likely. But Putin might also believe it to be the only way to remind Russia who is the boss.
The former KGB officer has a tough decision to make. Maria Snegovaya, a postdoctoral fellow at Virginia Tech’s Kellogg Center and a nonresident Atlantic Council fellow, explained Putin’s challenge. “Regardless of what happens next,” she told me on Sunday, “the Kremlin’s attempted murder of Navalny, his investigation of his own poisoning, and his subsequent return to Russia make him an unquestionable leader of Russia’s opposition.” Snegovaya continued, “Clearly, the Kremlin is very much concerned about Navalny’s growing status in Russia (his popularity is already noticeable at the federal level despite a lack of access to state-owned TV channels). A long term of imprisonment is likely, as well as various attempts to kick him out from the country or even another attempt to murder him. Ultimately all will depend on social mobilization. If multiple protests ensue which visibly hurt Putin’s popularity, the Kremlin will be less likely to prosecute him.”
The United States should not sit idle here.
President-elect Joe Biden should correct President Trump’s weakness on Navalny’s situation. Following on his national security adviser’s welcome condemnation of Navalny’s arrest, Biden should impose further sanctions on all corporations, and corporate cutouts, that assist in the completion of Putin’s Nord Stream II energy pipeline. The loss of Nord Stream II would be a major blow to Putin’s foreign policy strategy and a welcome signal of new resistance to his aggression. But if not for Biden, it won’t happen. As with its appeasement policy towards China, the European Union prefers to keep Putin happy. Chancellor Angela Merkel did, for a fleeting moment, threaten to kill off Nord Stream II but has since abandoned that pretense of leadership. The chancellor speaks often of the need for U.S.-EU leadership on international norms, let Biden hold Merkel to her word.
Navalny has set an example of courage. Whatever happens next, the international community should stand with him.
