Opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a Russian penal colony on Friday, depriving the Russian opposition of its last major leader.
Navalny emerged over the last decade as President Vladimir Putin’s strongest opponent and the only one with a credible path to victory. His combination of nationalist sentiment with anti-corruption advocacy resonated with much of Russia’s youth. His courtship of the West also helped his position, becoming the second most widely known politician in Russia, behind only its president.
Here are Navalny’s top acts of defiance, beginning with his leadership during the 2011 protests and ending with his death on Friday.
Reinvention and emergence to prominence in 2011
After beginning his career in fringe nationalist politics in the 2000s, Navalny became a national figure in 2011 when he emerged as a leader of the united opposition against Putin’s bid to return to the presidency of Russia. Among the eclectic opposition of progressive democratic, liberal, far-right nationalist, anarchist, and communist groups, Navalny’s charisma quickly gained him international attention.
On Feb. 2, 2011, in a radio interview, Navalny described Putin’s ruling United Russia Party as a “party of crooks and thieves,” a phrase credited with helping to launch large nationwide protests against alleged corruption from United Russia. After the Dec. 4, 2011 election results came in overwhelmingly in favor of United Russia, they were decried as deeply fraudulent by foreign and domestic sources, leading to some of the largest protests since the fall of the Soviet Union. Navalny’s first of many arrests on the second day of the protests brought him further fame.
The Russian dissident was arrested several more times over the ensuing months during protests demanding new elections. In March, he gained the attention of Amnesty International, which declared him a prisoner of conscience.
Beginnings as a politician and Moscow mayoral run in 2013
Navalny’s role in the 2011 demonstrations led to his recognition as a major political player, resulting in courtship from several new democratic parties. In 2013, he joined with the e-democratic Russia of the Future of the Party. His first major political contest began when he entered the Moscow mayoral election after the Putin-appointed Sergei Sobyanin sought elections to make his position more legitimate.
Just one day after registering for the race, Navalny was arrested on dubious charges, then released less than 24 hours later amid protests from his supporters. Princeton University noted that the incident was regarded by many as a “sea-change” in Russian politics, as the Kremlin backed down after political pressure made Navalny’s imprisonment politically inexpedient.
After fierce campaigning, Navalny finished in second place with a significant share of the vote, though he alleged fraud and refused to accept the election results. His impressive performance in the Russian capital put a dent in the Kremlin’s prestige just a year after Putin’s return to the presidency.
2018 presidential election and first political assault
Navalny announced his campaign for the presidency in December 2016, roughly a year before the typical campaigning season, making him the only major credible opposition figure in the race.
After intense campaigning throughout Russia and the collection of hundreds of thousands of signatures, Navalny was barred from running under the pretext of his prior criminal convictions. The move was widely viewed as politically motivated and would be met with major protests throughout and after the election season.
In April 2017, Navalny experienced the first of what would become a cornerstone of his career: assault by a chemical agent. An assailant, suspected by Navalny of being a pro-Kremlin agent, sprayed green dye in his face. The dye was likely mixed with a caustic agent, causing a chemical burn in his right eye that led to him losing 80% of eyesight in said eye.
The election also saw another staple of Navalny’s: his first major documentary accusing Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev of massive corruption. The documentary was ignored by the Kremlin but led to further protests.
2020 Novichok poisoning and response
On Aug. 20, 2020, on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, Navalny suddenly became violently ill, seen on video screaming in pain. The flight made an emergency landing in Omsk, where he was put in a coma. Two days later, he was taken to a Berlin hospital, where it was discovered by chemical watchdogs that he had been poisoned with a nerve agent known as Novichok.
While the Kremlin vehemently denied any involvement, a joint investigation from Bellingcat and the Insider claimed to have actually reached the FSB agents by phone, where they confessed to the poisoning.
Though Navalny would recover from the poisoning, the incident severely damaged the Kremlin’s already ailing reputation. The European Union, United Kingdom, and United States all imposed sanctions on Russian officials in response to the incident.
Return from exile and final imprisonment in 2021
While recovering from the poisoning in Germany, Navalny was given an ultimatum from the Moscow prison service on Dec. 28, 2020, demanding he appear in court the following day or be imprisoned upon any return to Russia. After declining on grounds he was still recovering from the poisoning, Navalny was put into de facto exile.
He ended his exile just one month later, returning to Russia of his own volition, knowing he would be arrested. He was arrested shortly after landing on grounds that he had broken the terms of an earlier suspended prison sentence, beginning his final imprisonment.
On Feb. 2, 2021, Navalny was given a 2 1/2 year sentence in a labor colony. In June, his political network was designated an extremist group and dismantled.
In the days leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Navalny was hit with several more fraud and contempt of court charges. His vocal opposition to the war led to further charges, and in August 2023, he was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison. His poor conditions helped lead to a global outcry against the Kremlin, which was already at a fever pitch over the war in Ukraine.
In one of his last public statements, made during his closing statements in July 2023, Navalny expressed hope for the future of the country.
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“In order for a new, free, rich country to be born, it has to have parents,” he said. “Those who want it. Those who expect it and are willing to make some sacrifices for its birth, knowing that it will be worth it. This doesn’t mean that everyone has to go to prison. It’s more of a lottery, and that ticket was drawn by me. But everyone has to make some kind of sacrifice, make some kind of effort.”
After being transported to one of the most brutal prison colonies in the Arctic Circle, Navalny died on Friday. The Russian prison system said he collapsed during a walk and failed to be resuscitated.
