Why didn't the Putin regime kill Navalny before, but now, just before the Munich Conference, suddenly found it necessary to kill him?

Navalny's death was announced just as the Munich Security Conference began

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison. The news about Alexei Navalny's death, which started to appear frequently in the Western press yesterday, was also confirmed by Russia. The Russian government claims that the opposition leader died of a stroke. The Western world has been flooded with statements with insinuations that Navalny, who allegedly suffered a stroke at the age of 47, was 'eliminated' by the Putin administration. Alexei Navalny's wife Yulia said that if the news of her husband's death is true, Russian President Vladimir Putin should be brought to justice.

Reacting to these 'premature' allegations, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova suggested that there was something "self-evident" in the biased statements of Western leaders. But whatever Moscow's official mouthpiece says, there are strong reasons to believe that his death may not have been an accident, especially given the timing. On the other hand, I believe there is a question that needs to be answered: "Why did Putin's government fail to kill Navanly before, but suddenly kill him now, just before the Munich Conference?"

Navalny, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's fiercest opponents, was recently transferred to a prison in the Yamalo-Nenets region near Siberia. Navalny has died, the prison said in a statement. In a statement posted on its website, the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said that Navalny "did not feel well" after taking a walk and "immediately lost consciousness." 

Is There Democracy in Russia?

No one can talk about the existence of democracy in Russia in the modern sense. And the Kremlin has no intention of doing so. As a footnote, Putin-style 'pseudo-democracy' has also become the norm in Turkic states, including Azerbaijan, where Aliyev was recently 're-elected'. Expecting truly democratic governments to come to power in Russia and the Turkic states in the near future is nothing more than a pipe dream.

The Munich Security Conference has started. As is well known, this is an annual gathering of Western leaders to discuss security issues. The 2022 Munich Security Conference took place just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now Putin seems to be wagging his finger at the Munich Security Conference with the assassination of Alexei Navalny. Let's see what comes out of it.

From the outside, it seems that death was probably the only way for Alexei Navalny to avoid imprisonment on 'trumped up' charges. Presumably, either his death or the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin could end his life in prison. With Russian media reports that Navalny died after taking a walk in the Arctic penal colony where he was last held, Navalny's prison ordeal is over.

Was Navalny going to replace Putin?

For many, Navalny, the former lawyer, blogger, anti-corruption investigator, presidential candidate, the face of the real anti-Putin opposition in Russia, offered the best democratic alternative to Putinism. But most Russians had little hope that this high-profile opposition leader would ever come to power. Although he did not have the full support of the people, Navalny managed to build a national movement based on exposing the widespread corruption of the Putin system and its authoritarian rule based on violence and repression. Even without any hope of winning the rigged Russian elections or triggering a sudden popular uprising that would topple Russia's leadership, Putin saw Navalny and his team as a mortal threat.

Perhaps for this reason, especially before launching the war in Ukraine, Putin began to eviscerate Russian civil society and free media, including Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). This repression essentially disbanded or neutralized any organizations or popular figures around which the Russian people could rally against the war in Ukraine.

Before his imprisonment, Navalny had the opportunity to continue his fight against Putin abroad. After surviving an assassination attempt in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 to continue his struggle at home, knowing that he could face certain imprisonment and possibly the death penalty for opposing Putin. Shortly afterwards, Navalny's foundation FBK was declared an "extremist" organization and forcibly liquidated. Its offices across the country were closed and those who were not imprisoned were taken out of the country.

During Russia's parliamentary elections in the fall of 2021, the Kremlin forced Google and Apple to remove from their online stores an app associated with the FBK's "Smart Voting" program, which encouraged voters to unite around independent candidates rather than the somewhat predetermined winners of Putin's United Russia party, the Duma. The widespread conviction that the elections were rigged was given as much evidence as possible by these apps. 

Navalny and his team were skilled at breaking through the dry gloom of Putinism. Navalny's investigations into Russia's kleptocracy were full of originality and humor. In 2016, for example, his revelation that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had built a special building for ducks in one of his luxury homes became a viral 'meme'. He managed to turn rubber ducks into a symbol of protest in Russia. 

In 2020, Navalny refused necessary medical care even as his health deteriorated due to side effects from exposure to a deadly nerve agent during an assassination attempt by Russian security forces. Meanwhile, Navalny's own blue underwear, on which the lethal nerve agent Novichok was smeared by his assassins, became a symbol of resistance. In a Russian system where dissent is unwelcome, Navalny quickly became known as a man with a knack for finding issues that could mobilize dissident Russians who disagreed with Putin, and for using provocative language to get the public's attention. 

This background enabled Navalny to become the leader of dissent in Russia. With the start of the war in 2022, Navalny came to the fore with his statements opposing the war in Ukraine not as a crime and genocide, but as a disaster for Russia. Saying "No to Putin's war!", Navalny was making it even more difficult for the Russian Armed Forces, which were short of soldiers and had a great deal of trouble in Ukraine, contrary to what was initially expected. When Putin called for mobilization, Navalny's contrary voice was heard again. This situation threw Putin out of tune.

The system created by Putin and his allies over the last quarter century empowers Putin to become the fourth great figure in Russian history. Putin wants to make good use of this historical opportunity. In his own person, he is projecting onto the field the notion that the Russian state mechanism should be omnipotent. While Putin's "re-election" in next month's elections is designed as a ritual to reaffirm his power, Navalny's murder is a striking reminder of the extraordinary lengths to which Putin must go to maintain that power. Sometimes one death can trigger a lot of change in a society. It is Navalny's death or murder that could spell the end of Putin. 

With Navalny's murder, Putin has left no real alternative to his rule in Russia for the time being, and the opportunity for change in this vast geography is largely gone for the near term. The Western world remains delusional. The best and perhaps the only real hope of creating a new opening for change in Russia is Putin's decisive defeat in Ukraine, in his greatest act of violence. 

But the immutable truth in every country is this: success in domestic politics depends on making 'enemies' in foreign policy. The people unite in the face of a common enemy, rallying around the current leader. The Russian people believe that in Ukraine they are fighting Western imperialism, not the Ukrainians, whom they see as their own. Under these circumstances, whether the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian war is a defeat or a victory for Moscow, not much will change for the master of the Kremlin. If we look at the history of Russia over the last 100 years, what has happened to the country is not the people getting fed up and replacing them, but the reflection of the struggle within the Russian elite for power. This is why I find it hard to understand why the Western world, despite knowing the dynamics inside Russia, seems to be relying on artificial movements aimed at toppling Putin. 

Navalny had built an opposition movement bigger than himself

Anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who died in prison yesterday at the age of forty-seven, was undoubtedly the most popular and influential opposition leader to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin during his almost quarter-century in power. Navalny's state-sanctioned murder (if the allegations are true) represents a major setback for Russia's democracy movement. If this is a genuine opposition movement, it is surely much bigger than any one person. Even without Navalny, it will want to pursue its goals with a new leader. 

Navalny's strategies and messages to fight the Putin regime have allegedly spread to a different group of pro-democracy actors in Russia. According to the Western press, this movement has proven to be resilient and adaptable to more than a decade of increasingly harsh repression and will adapt to this disruptive development. 

Navalny emerged as an important political leader during the "Bolotnaya" protests in Russia in 2011-2012, when Russians took to the streets to protest Putin's third term as president. Yet Navalny's activism since 2011 has contributed to the development of a broader democratic movement that could have continued without him.

Navalny's personal popularity has allowed him to move rapidly towards becoming the leader of the opposition. In 2013, his competitive campaign for mayor of Moscow attracted thousands of volunteers and launched the political careers of many opposition figures who later became important figures in their own right. His shadow "campaign" for the presidency in 2018 (which continued even after he was denied access to the ballot) established a vast network of dozens of local offices spread across Russia's vast territory, which he continued to use after the election as incubators of local political and civic activism. The Foundation Against Corruption (FBK), the non-governmental organization Navalny founded to fight corruption and raise public awareness, continued its high-profile actions during his imprisonment. In 2021, FBK was labeled "extremist" and many of its employees were imprisoned and forced into exile, yet the organization remains one of the most important in Russian civil society. FBK's YouTube channel "Navalny Live" is one of the most popular in Russia, reaching millions of Russians every month. Beyond those directly connected to Navalny, there are thousands of (mostly young) Russian activists who, inspired by Navalny's work, are making their own efforts to build a better future for their country. 

Conclusion

In an interview in the Oscar-winning documentary 2022 about his work, Navalny is asked what message he would like to send if he were killed. He replied: "You are not allowed to give up. If [they decide to kill me], it means that we are incredibly powerful. We need to use this power. All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing." 

Who knows, now Navalny's suspicious death could serve as a message to Russians that could inspire even greater efforts to build a better future. It might wake up the good Russians...

Reference

Lipika Pelham, "Putin must be held accountable - Yulia Navalnaya", BBC News, February 17, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68320466

Pavel Fekula, "If Navalny's death is confirmed, what should Ukraine do to handle Russia?" February 17, 2024, https://www.quora.com/If-Navalnys-death-is-confirmed-what-should-Ukraine-do-to-handle-Russia