The Russian government claimed on Friday that it had launched a “procedural investigation” into the announced death of Alexei Navalny, a longtime opponent of strongman Vladimir Putin’s regime and his political prisoner since 2021.
Navalny was one of the most prominent political voices in Russia against Putin and had survived at least one assassination attempt prior to his arrest in 2021. Even during his time in prison, Navalny regularly published statements condemning – and often mocking – Putin for allowing the Russian economy to stagnate, for violently repressing political opposition, and for what Navalny described as a disastrous decision to invade neighboring Ukraine.
Navalny most recently disappeared in December, only to resurface in an Arctic prison. In one of his last messages before death, Navalny told his supporters, “I am your new Father Frost,” a reference to the Russian version of Santa Claus.
Russia’s penitentiary authorities announced that Navalny had died on Friday in a brief missive notably devoid of details. The Russian propaganda outlet RT claimed that Navalny had a “blood clot,” but did not elaborate, nor did it offer any sourcing on the claim.
Putin Critic, Russian Opposition Leader Alexi Navalny Dies in Arctic Penal Colony Says Russia https://t.co/OTrJFtN5rI
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 16, 2024
“On February 16, 2024, at the penal colony No. 3, convict A. A. Navalny did not feel well after a walk, almost instantly fainting. The facility’s medical staff arrived immediately, an ambulance was called,” authorities said.
“All necessary resuscitation procedures have been carried out without any positive results. The ambulance crew pronounced the convict dead. The cause of death is being established,” the statement concluded.
The Federal Penitentiary Service confirmed that it had opened an investigation into Navalny shortly after the announcement of his death.
“The Investigative Directorate of Russia’s Investigative Committee for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region has organized a procedural inspection over the death of A. A. Navalny at the penal colony No. 3,” the service said in a statement, according to the Russian news agency Tass. “A set of investigative and operating procedures directed at establishing all the circumstances of the incident is being implemented according to due legal process.”
Navalny’s team, consisting of his attorney and some close aides, did not appear to have much information on his reported demise as of Friday. Attorney Leonid Solovyov told reporters that someone on his legal team “had visited Alexei on Wednesday; everything was fine then.”
At the Kremlin, Putin’s top spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the dictator was aware that his rival was dead but added no further details. Putin has not commented on the matter at press time.
File/Police detain Alexei Navalny, a prominent anti-corruption whistle blower and blogger during protests in Moscow, late Tuesday, May 8, 2012 a day after Putin’s inauguration. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)
Peskov also gave reporters a similar statement to that of the Federal Penitentiary Service, vowing some form of “inspections, clarifications, and so on.”
In contrast to the on-the-record statements by Russian officials, anonymous sources told the Moscow Times that Navalny’s cause of death was likely the “harsh” prison conditions and that Putin wanted to eliminate the opposition leader. Russia is expected to host another round of sham “presidential” elections this year in which Putin is vying for a fifth term in power against two approved opponents from parties largely friendly to the dictatorship.
“The regime wanted him dead. That’s why it happened, that’s why it was allowed to happen,” an unnamed “former senior Kremlin official” told the Moscow Times.
Another anonymous alleged official said that Navalny had been regularly forced into solitary confinement, likely causing his death.
“It would seem that the [prison] conditions were too harsh. Three hundred days in a punishment cell is a lot,” the official was quoted as saying.
Navalny accused the Russian government of attempting to kill him in 2020 after he fell ill and was found to have been poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent almost exclusively used by the Putin regime. He claimed in December of that year to have documented an agent with the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, telling him that Putin had ordered Navalny’s poisoning with Novichok and that the nerve agent had been placed in his underwear.
Navalny decided to return to Russia in early 2021. The Putin regime immediately arrested him in Moscow and accused him of “extremism” for his opposition to the regime. He faced multiple convictions and sentences, the longest one an “extremist” conviction in 2023 accompanied by a 19-year prison sentence.
File/A man holds a poster with a portrait of opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a protest in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Germany, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
“I understand perfectly that, as many political prisoners, I’m serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime,” Navalny said after his sentencing.
From prison, Navalny continued to issue statements against Putin, becoming a vocal critic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In February 2022, as the invasion began, Navalny issued public statements from prison comparing Putin to a grandfather “getting drunk at a family celebration and annoying everyone with his stories about how world politics actually works.”
“It would be funny if the drunk grandfather was not a man of 69 who holds power in a country with nuclear weapons,” Navalny lamented at the time, accusing Putin of attempting to “divert the attention of the people of Russia from real problems” by waging war on Ukraine.
Navalny was 47 years old at the time of his death.
