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The Russian opposition just lost its brightest star. What does it do now?
Alexei Navalny was asked four years ago what he'd tell Russians if he were killed for challenging President Vladimir Putin.
“You’re not allowed to give up,” he told a documentary maker. “If they decide to kill me, it means we are incredibly strong and we need to use this power.”
Russia's prison agency announced Friday that Navalny had died in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism. His death sparked accusations around the world that he had been killed.
WHAT DOES THE OPPOSITION DO NOW?
Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of way s. The Russian opposition has lost its brightest star with Navalny's sudden death in a prison colony. Now the question on everyone’s mind: What does it do now?
Most of Russia’s opposition is either dead, scattered abroad in exile or in prison at home. Remaining opposition groups and key political figures have different visions about what Russia should become, and who should lead it. There is not even an anti-war candidate on the ballot to give Putin a token challenge in next month’s election for a sixth term.
THE END OF DISSENT?
With Navalny's elimination from the picture, many are wondering if this is the end of political dissent in Russia.
“Alexei Navalny was a very bright and charismatic leader. He had the talent to ignite people, to convince them of the need for change,” said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former tycoon who spent a decade in prison in Russia on charges widely seen as political revenge for challenging Putin’s rule in the early 2000s.
Read: Nerve agents, poison and window falls. Kremlin foes have been attacked or killed over the years
“This is a very difficult loss for the Russian opposition,” he told The Associated Press after his death.
Graeme Robertson, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of a book about Putin and contemporary Russian politics, says the biggest problem that has plagued the Russian opposition “is that it has been unable to break out from small liberal circles to attract support from the broader population.”
Khodorkovsky, who lives in London, is one of several Russian opposition politicians trying to build a coalition with grassroots anti-war groups across the world and exiled Russian opposition figures. They include Russian chess legend Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister and Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in Russia for treason after criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine.
But Navalny’s team, and the Anti-Corruption Foundation he founded, are not a part of it.
“We constantly tell the guys from the Anti-Corruption Foundation ... that it would be great if we all met not only in front of television cameras, but sat down at the table,” Khodorkovsky said in another interview before Navalny’s death, referring to a television debate in January hosted by the independent Russian TV channel Dozhd.
While Navalny was the first leader to build a national Russian opposition, there were other opposition factions who didn’t like him or his organization.
Read: Navalny’s wife expresses skepticism over reports from Russian government sources
Before his death, there were public and heated disagreements on social media between members of his team and other politicians about how they could challenge Putin in March’s upcoming election.
PUTIN CONSOLIDATES POWER
Meanwhile, the Russian leader has continued to consolidate his grip on power, cracking down on dissent at home, imprisoning critics of the war in Ukraine, and silencing independent media.
Squabbling among the opposition, “doesn’t help,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a former British ambassador to Belarus and senior fellow for Russia & Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. But, even if the opposition were united, he questioned whether “given the instruments of coercion, repression and intimidation available to the Russian state, what difference, at least in the short term, would that make?”
THREE DECADES OF PUTIN
Putin is eyeing at least another six years in the Kremlin, which means he could effectively rule Russia for almost three decades.
Russia’s remaining opposition leaders and activists, largely outside the country, are now grappling with the question of how to mount an effective challenge to the Kremlin. That would mean breaking through state propaganda to reach Russians inside the country and offer them an alternative to the Kremlin’s vision of the future.
It is a difficult task, one which even Navalny struggled with after he returned to Moscow in February 2021 to face certain arrest after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin.
Shortly after his return while he was in jail, his team released a social media investigation into corruption that was viewed millions of times. It provoked a series of anti-graft protests across Russia but the police brutally cracked down and detained thousands of people.
While Navalny’s team continued to publish successful investigative reports, they ultimately suspended the protests and said they would switch to different tactics.
Although Navalny had his finger on the pulse, and his team succeeded in widely publicizing the investigation, the anti-corruption message ultimately failed to produce political change inside Russia, Robertson said, because most Russians “know their country is badly governed and that their elite is corrupt, but they don’t see it being any other way."
In the three years since Navalny was jailed, Russian authorities have introduced more laws tightening freedom of speech and jailing critics, often ordinary people, sometimes for decades.
Khodorkovsky said the response to Navalny’s “murder” should be to join forces and continue work started before Navalny’s death, trying to convince ordinary Russians to protest in any way they can during March’s presidential election.
He called on Russians to protest by writing Navalny’s name on the ballot paper during the election. The Russian Anti-War Committee, backed by Khodorkovsky and other politicians, is also asking Russians to attend “Noon against Putin,” an idea which was supported by Navalny in early February, which suggests using the pretext of the vote as an opportunity to gather and protest at 12 p.m. on 17 March.
OPPOSITION IN EXILE
In the meantime, the Russian opposition faces a future largely in exile without one of its brightest leaders.
It will be incredibly difficult, but Russia's exiled politicians say they are determined that the hope of democracy in their country does not die along with Navalny.
“Putin," Khodorkovsky said, “must understand that he can kill his political opponent, but not the very idea of a democratic opposition.”
Nerve agents, poison and window falls. Kremlin foes have been attacked or killed over the years
The attacks range from the exotic — poisoned by drinking polonium-laced tea or touching a deadly nerve agent — to the more mundane of getting shot at close range. Some take a fatal plunge from an open window.
Over the years, Kremlin political critics, turncoat spies and investigative journalists have been killed or assaulted in a variety of ways.
On Friday, Russian authorities said President Vladimir Putin's key political challenger, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic prison colony. The details of what happened are unknown; Navalny's team says it has no official confirmation of his death and Russian authorities say they are establishing why he died. His allies previously accused Russian officials of trying to poison him with a nerve agent in 2020.
Navalny’s wife expresses skepticism over reports from Russian government sources
Assassination attempts against foes of Putin have been common during his nearly quarter century in power. Those close to the victims and the few survivors have blamed Russian authorities, but the Kremlin has routinely denied involvement.
There also have been reports of prominent Russian executives dying under mysterious circumstances, including falling from windows, although whether they were deliberate killings or suicides is sometimes difficult to determine.
Some prominent cases of documented killings or attempted killings:
POLITICAL OPPONENTS
In August 2020, Navalny fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane landed in the city of Omsk, where Navalny was hospitalized in a coma. Two days later, he was airlifted to Berlin, where he recovered.
His allies almost immediately said he was poisoned, but Russian officials denied it. Labs in Germany, France and Sweden confirmed Navalny was poisoned by a Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, which he reported had been applied to his underwear.
Who is Navalny? Protests, poisoning and prison, a look at the life of a Russian opposition leader
Navalny returned to Russia and was convicted last August of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison. It was his third conviction with a prison sentence in two years. He said the charges were politically motivated.
On Friday, Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service said Navalny felt unwell after a walk and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived, but he could not be revived. The service said his cause of death was "being established."
In 2018, Pyotr Verzilov, a founder of the protest group Pussy Riot, fell severely ill and also was flown to Berlin, where doctors said poisoning was "highly plausible." He eventually recovered. Earlier that year, Verzilov embarrassed the Kremlin by running onto the field during soccer's World Cup final in Moscow with three other activists to protest police brutality. His allies said he could have been targeted because of his activism.
Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza survived what he believes were attempts to poison him in 2015 and 2017. He nearly died from kidney failure in the first instance and suspects poisoning but no cause was determined. He was hospitalized with a similar illness in 2017 and put into a medically induced coma. His wife said doctors confirmed he was poisoned.
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russia’s Putin, has died in a Russian prison
Kara-Murza survived, and his lawyer says police have refused to investigate. Last year, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to 25 years in prison. In January he was moved to a prison in Siberia and placed in solitary confinement over an alleged minor infraction.
The highest profile killing of a political opponent in recent years was that of Boris Nemtsov. Once deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, Nemtsov was a popular politician and harsh critic of Putin. On a cold February night in 2015, he was gunned down by assailants on a bridge adjacent to the Kremlin as he walked with his girlfriend in a death that shocked the country.
Five men from the Russian region of Chechnya were convicted for his killing, with the gunman receiving up to 20 years. But Nemtsov's allies said that was an attempt to shift blame from the government.
FORMER INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVES
In 2006, Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko, a former agent for the KGB and its post-Soviet successor agency, the FSB, became violently ill in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210. He died three weeks later.
Russian opposition leader Navalny sentenced to 19 years in prison
Litvinenko had been investigating the shooting death of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya as well as the Russian intelligence service's alleged links to organized crime. Before dying, Litvinenko told journalists the FSB was still operating a poisons laboratory dating from the Soviet era.
A British inquiry found that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Putin's approval, but the Kremlin denied any involvement.
Another former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal, was poisoned in Britain in 2018. He and his adult daughter Yulia fell ill in the city of Salisbury and spent weeks in critical condition. They survived, but the attack later claimed the life of a British woman and left a man and a police officer seriously ill.
Authorities said they both were poisoned with the military grade nerve agent Novichok. Britain blamed Russian intelligence, but Moscow denied any role. Putin called Skripal, a double agent for Britain during his espionage career, a "scumbag" of no interest to the Kremlin because he was tried in Russia and exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.
JOURNALISTS
Numerous journalists critical of authorities in Russia have been killed or suffered mysterious deaths, which their colleagues in some cases blamed on someone in the political hierarchy. In other cases, the reported reluctance by authorities to investigate raised suspicions.
Politkovskaya, the journalist for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta whose death Litvinenko was investigating, was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006 — Putin's birthday. She had won international acclaim for her reporting on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The gunman, from Chechnya, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Four other Chechens were given shorter prison terms for their involvement in the murder.
‘Navalny,’ about dissident fighting Kremlin, wins doc Oscar
Yuri Shchekochikhin, another Novaya Gazeta reporter, died of a sudden and violent illness in 2003. Shchekochikhin was investigating corrupt business deals and the possible role of Russian security services in the 1999 apartment house bombings blamed on Chechen insurgents. His colleagues insisted that he was poisoned and accused the authorities of deliberately hindering the investigation.
YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN AND HIS LIEUTENANTS
A plane crash last August which killed Yevgeny Prigozhin and top lieutenants of his Wagner private military company came two months to the day after he launched an armed rebellion that Putin labeled "a stab in the back" and "treason." While not critical of Putin, Prigozhin slammed the Russian military leadership and questioned the motives for going to war in Ukraine.
Russian court outlaws opposition leader Navalny s groups
A U.S. intelligence assessment found that the crash that killed all 10 people aboard was intentionally caused by an explosion, according to U.S. and Western officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. One said the explosion fell in line with Putin's "long history of trying to silence his critics."
Putin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, rejected allegations the Kremlin was behind the crash. "Of course, in the West those speculations are put out under a certain angle, and all of it is a complete lie," he told reporters.
In his first public comments after the crash, Putin appeared to hint there was no bad blood between him and Prigozhin. But former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said: "Putin has demonstrated that if you fail to obey him without question, he will dispose of you without mercy, like an enemy, even if you are formally a patriot."
Russia s Navalny asks court to end prison security checks
Navalny’s wife expresses skepticism over reports from Russian government sources
Alexei Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, blamed the reported death of her husband on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime, saying they are responsible for all of the “terrible things” being done to the country and predicting that they won’t remain in power for long.
Speaking from the main stage at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, Navalnaya said that if her husband did in fact die — expressing skepticism because her team had only heard it from Russian government sources — she wants Putin and his friends in power to know that they “bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband.”
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russia’s Putin, has died in a Russian prison
She said she wavered on whether to speak at the conference or to fly straight to the couple’s two children.
“But then I thought what Alexey would do in my place. And I’m sure he would be here. He would be on this stage.”
Who is Navalny? Protests, poisoning and prison, a look at the life of a Russian opposition leader
Who is Navalny? Protests, poisoning and prison, a look at the life of a Russian opposition leader
Alexei Navalny, Russia's top opposition leader and President Vladimir Putin's fiercest foe, died in prison on Friday, a statement from the Federal Penitentiary Service said.
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, felt unwell after a walk and collapsed, it said. The politician's team had no immediate confirmation of his death.
Navalny was moved in December from his former prison in central Russia to to a "special regime" penal colony — the highest security level of prisons in Russia — above the Arctic Circle.
In a span of a decade, he went from being the Kremlin's biggest foe to Russia's most prominent political prisoner.
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russia’s Putin, has died in a Russian prison
Here's a look at key events in Navalny's life, political activism and the charges he has faced through the years:
June 4, 1976 — Navalny is born in a western part of the Moscow region.
1997 — Graduates from Russia's RUDN university, where he majored in law; earns a degree in economics in 2001 while working as a lawyer.
2004 — Forms a movement against rampant overdevelopment in Moscow, according to his campaign website.
2008 — Gains notoriety for alleging corruption in state-run corporations, such as gas giant Gazprom and oil behemoth Rosneft, through his blogs and other posts.
2010 — Founds RosPil, an anti-corruption project run by a team of lawyers that analyzes spending of state agencies and companies, exposing violations and contesting them in court.
2011 — Establishes the Foundation for Fighting Corruption, which will become his team's main platform for exposing alleged graft among Russia's top political ranks.
December 2011 — Participates in mass protests sparked by reports of widespread rigging of Russia's parliamentary election, and is arrested and jailed for 15 days for "defying a government official."
Russia s Navalny asks court to end prison security checks
March 2012 — Following President Vladimir Putin's reelection and inauguration, mass protests break out in Moscow and elsewhere. Navalny accuses key figures, including then-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Chechnya's strongman leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, of corruption.
July 2012 — Russia's Investigative Committee charges Navalny with embezzlement involving Kirovles, a state-owned timber company in the Kirov region, while acting as an adviser to the local governor. Navalny rejects the allegations as politically motivated.
December 2012 — The Investigative Committee launches another probe into alleged embezzlement at a Navalny-linked Russian subsidiary of Yves Rocher, a French cosmetics company. Navalny again says the allegations are politically motivated.
2013 — Navalny runs for mayor in Moscow — a move the authorities not only allow but encourage in an attempt to put a veneer of democracy on the race that is designed to boost the profile of the incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin.
July 2013 — A court in Kirov convicts Navalny of embezzlement in the Kirovles case, sentencing him to five years in prison. The prosecution petitions to release Navalny from custody pending his appeal, and he resumes his campaign.
September 2013 — Official results show Navalny finishes second in the mayor's race behind Sobyanin, with 27% of the vote, after a successful electoral and fundraising campaign collecting an unprecedented 97.3 million rubles ($2.9 million) from individual supporters.
October 2013 — A court hands Navalny a suspended sentence in the Kirovles case.
Russian opposition leader Navalny sentenced to 19 years in prison
February 2014 — Navalny is placed under house arrest in connection with the Yves Rocher case and banned from using the internet. His blog continues to be updated regularly, presumably by his team, detailing alleged corruption by various Russian officials.
December 2014 — Navalny and his brother, Oleg, are found guilty of fraud in the Yves Rocher case. Navalny receives a 3 ½-year suspended sentence, while his brother is handed a prison term. Both appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
December 2015 — Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption releases its first long-form video — a YouTube documentary called "Chaika," which means "seagull" in Russian but is also the last name of then-Prosecutor General Yury Chaika. The 44-minute video accuses him of corruption and alleged ties to a notorious criminal group and has piled up 26 million views on YouTube. Chaika and other Russian officials deny the accusations.
February 2016 — The European Court of Human Rights rules that Russia violated Navalny's right to a fair trial in the Kirovles case, ordering the government to pay his legal costs and damages.
November 2016 — Russia's Supreme Court overturns Navalny's sentence and sends the case back to the original court in the city of Kirov for review.
December 2016 — Navalny announces he will run in Russia's 2018 presidential election.
‘Navalny,’ about dissident fighting Kremlin, wins doc Oscar
February 2017 — The Kirov court retries Navalny and upholds his five-year suspended sentence from 2013.
March 2017 — Navalny releases a YouTube documentary accusing then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of corruption, getting over seven million views in its first week. A series of anti-graft protests across Russia draw tens of thousands and there are mass arrests. Navalny tours the country to open campaign offices, holds big rallies and is jailed repeatedly for unauthorized demonstrations.
April 27, 2017 — Unidentified assailants throw a green disinfectant in his face, damaging his right eye. He blames the attack on the Kremlin.
October 2017 — The European Court of Human Rights finds Navalny's fraud conviction in the Yves Rocher case to be "arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable."
December 2017 — Russia's Central Electoral Commission bars him from running for president over his conviction in the Kirovles case, a move condemned by the EU as casting "serious doubt" on the election.
Russian court outlaws opposition leader Navalny s groups
July 2019 — Members of Navalny's team, along with other opposition activists, are barred from running for Moscow city council, sparking protests that are violently dispersed, with thousands arrested. Navalny's team responds by promoting the "Smart Voting" strategy, encouraging the election of any candidate except those from the Kremlin's United Russia party. The strategy works, with the party losing its majority.
2020 — Navalny seeks to deploy the Smart Voting strategy during regional elections in September and tours Siberia as part of the effort.
Aug. 20, 2020 — On a flight from the city of Tomsk, where he was working with local activists, Navalny falls ill and the plane makes an emergency landing in nearby Omsk. Hospitalized in a coma, Navalny's team suspects he was poisoned.
Aug. 22, 2020 — A comatose Navalny is flown to a hospital in Berlin.
Aug. 24, 2020 — German authorities confirm Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent. After he recovers, he blames the Kremlin, an accusation denied by Russian officials.
Jan. 17, 2021 — After five months in Germany, Navalny is arrested upon his return to Russia, with authorities alleging his recuperation abroad violated the terms of his suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case. His arrest triggers some of the biggest protests in Russia in years. Thousands are arrested.
Feb. 2, 2021 — A Moscow court orders Navalny to serve 2 ½ years in prison for his parole violation. While in prison, Navalny stages a three-week hunger strike to protest a lack of medical treatment and sleep deprivation.
Over 5,100 arrested at pro-Navalny protests across Russia
June 2021 — A Moscow court outlaws Navalny's Foundation for Fighting Corruption and about 40 regional offices as extremist, shutting down his political network. Close associates and team members face prosecution and leave Russia under pressure. Navalny maintains contact with his lawyers and team from prison, and they update his social media accounts.
Feb. 24, 2022 — Russia invades Ukraine. Navalny condemns the war in social media posts from prison and during his court appearances.
March 22, 2022 — Navalny is sentenced to an additional nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court in a case his supporters rejected as fabricated. He is transferred to a maximum-security prison in Russia's western Vladimir region.
July 2022 — Navalny's team announces the relaunch of the Anti-Corruption Foundation as an international organization with an advisory board including Francis Fukuyama, Anne Applebaum, and the European Parliament member and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Navalny continues to file lawsuits in prison and tries to form a labor union in the facility. Officials respond by regularly placing him in solitary confinement over purported disciplinary violations such as failing to properly button his garment or to wash his face at a specified time.
2023 — Over 400 Russian doctors sign an open letter to Putin, urging an end to what it calls abuse of Navalny, following reports that he was denied basic medication after getting the flu. His team expresses concern about his health, saying in April he had acute stomach pain and suspected he was being slowly poisoned.
Behind the Kremlin's response to Navalny rallies
March 12, 2023 — "Navalny," a film about the attempt on the opposition leader's life, wins the Oscar for best documentary feature.
April 26, 2023 — Appearing on a video link from prison during a hearing, Navalny says he was facing new extremism and terrorism charges that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life. He adds sardonically that the charges imply that "I'm conducting terror attacks while sitting in prison."
June 19, 2023 — The trial begins in a makeshift courtroom in the Penal Colony No. 6 where Navalny is held. Soon after it starts, the judge closes the trial to the public and media despite Navalny's objections.
July 20, 2023 — In closing arguments, the prosecution asks the court to sentence Navalny to 20 years in prison, his team reports. Navalny says in a subsequent statement that he expects his sentence to be "huge … a Stalinist term," referring to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Aug. 4, 2023 — Navalny is convicted of extremism and sentenced to 19 years, and he says he understands he's "serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime."
Oct. 13, 2023 — Authorities detain three lawyers representing Navalny after searching their homes, and his ally Ivan Zhdanov says on social media the move is a bid to "completely isolate Navalny." The raids targeting Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin and Alexei Liptser are part of a criminal case on charges of participating in an extremist group, Zhdanov says. Navalny's spokesperson says if the opposition leader has no access to lawyers, "he will end up in complete isolation, the kind no one can really even imagine."
Dec. 2, 2023 — New charges are filed against Navalny. In comments passed to associates, Navalny says he has been charged under Article 214 of the penal code, covering vandalism. "I don't even know whether to describe my latest news as sad, funny or absurd," he writes on social media via his team. "I have no idea what Article 214 is, and there's nowhere to look. You'll know before I do."
Navalny defiant as Russian court rejects his bid for freedom
Dec. 7, 2023 — Navalny's team erects billboards across Russia featuring QR codes that lead smartphones to a hidden website urging Russians to take part in a campaign against Putin, who is expected to run for reelection in March 2024. Navalny's team say the vote is important for Putin as a referendum on his war in Ukraine, rather than a real contest for the presidency.
Dec. 11, 2023 — Navalny is scheduled to appear in court via video link but does not appear, and his spokeswoman says prison officials are citing electricity problems. Navalny's allies express concern, saying neither they nor his lawyers have heard from him in several weeks.
Dec. 25, 2023 — Navalny's allies say he's been located in a prison colony in the town of Kharp, north of the Arctic Circle, notorious for long and severe winters. It's about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were among the harshest of the Soviet Gulag prison-camp system.
Jan. 10 — Navalny appears via video link from Kharp for the first time. Russian news outlets release images of him in black prison garb and with a buzz cut, on a live TV feed from the "special regime" penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow. At the hearing, Navalny cracks jokes about Arctic weather and asks if officials at his former prison threw a party when he was transferred.
Feb. 16 — Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service says Navalny died in prison at the age of 47. It says he felt unwell after a walk and collapsed. An ambulance arrived but could not resuscitate him. Navalny's team says it has no confirmation of his death and that his lawyer is on the way to the Kharp penal colony.
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russia’s Putin, has died in a Russian prison
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests, died in prison Friday, Russia's prison agency said. He was 47.
The Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk on Friday and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to rehabilitate him, but he died.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Putin was informed of Navalny's death and the prison service was looking into the death in line with standard procedures.
Russian opposition leader Navalny sentenced to 19 years in prison
Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the politician's team had no confirmation of his death so far and that his lawyer was traveling to the town where he was held.
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, was moved in December from his former prison in the Vladimir region of central Russia to to a "special regime" penal colony — the highest security level of prisons in Russia — above the Artic Circle.
Russia s Navalny asks court to end prison security checks
His allies decried the transfer to a colony in the town of Kharp, in the Yamalo-Nenets region about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, as yet another attempt to force Navalny into silence.
The remote region is notorious for long and severe winters. Kharp is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Vorkuta, whose coal mines were part of the Soviet gulag prison-camp system.
Protests, poisoning and prison: A look at the life of Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny
Navalny had been behind bars since January 2021, when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. Before his arrest, he campaigned against official corruption, organized major anti-Kremlin protests and ran for public office.
He had since received three prison sentences, all of which he rejected as politically motivated.
In Putin's Russia, political opponents often faded amid factional disputes or went into exile after imprisonment, suspected poisonings or other heavy repression. But Navalny grew consistently stronger and reached the apex of the opposition through grit, bravado and an acute understanding of how social media could circumvent the Kremlin's suffocation of independent news outlets.
He faced each setback — whether it was a physical assault or imprisonment — with an intense devotion, confronting dangers with a sardonic wit. That drove him to the bold and fateful move of returning from Germany to Russia and certain arrest.
Navalny was born in Butyn, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside Moscow. He received a law degree from People's Friendship University in 1998 and did a fellowship at Yale in 2010.
He gained attention by focusing on corruption in Russia's murky mix of politicians and businesses; one of his early moves was to buy a stake in Russian oil and gas companies to become an activist shareholder and push for transparency. By concentrating on corruption, Navalny's work had a pocketbook appeal to Russians' widespread sense of being cheated, and he carried stronger resonance than more abstract and philosophical concerns about democratic ideals and human rights.
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He was convicted in 2013 of embezzlement on what he called a politically motivated prosecution and was sentenced to five years in prison, but the prosecutor's office later surprisingly demanded his release pending appeal. A higher court later gave him a suspended sentence.
The day before the sentence, Navalny had registered as a candidate for Moscow mayor. The opposition saw his release as the result of large protests in the capital of his sentence, but many observers attributed it to a desire by authorities to add a tinge of legitimacy to the mayoral election.
Navalny finished second, an impressive performance against the incumbent who had the backing of Putin's political machine and was popular for improving the capital's infrastructure and aesthetics.
Navalny's popularity increased after the leading charismatic politician, Boris Nemtsov, was shot and killed in 2015 on a bridge near the Kremlin.
Whenever Putin spoke about Navalny, he made it a point to never mention the activist by name, referring to him as "that person" or similar wording, in an apparent effort to diminish his importance.
Russian court mulls motion to outlaw Navalny s organizations
At least 11 dead in massive fire at paint factory in New Delhi
A massive fire swept through a paint factory in India's capital, New Delhi, killing at least 11 people and leaving four others injured, news agency Press Trust of India reported.
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Fire officials said that the blaze started late Thursday on the ground floor of the factory, trapping the victims on the floors above with no way out. The building, which also houses a chemical warehouse, is located in the Alipur area in northern New Delhi.
Fire damages feed and fertiliser factory in Gazipur
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.
The charred bodies of the 11 victims were recovered from the rubble after 22 fire engines doused the flames after battling for more than five hours. The victims have not yet been identified.
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Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents.
India's top court strikes down system for anonymous political donations ahead of national elections
India’s top court on Thursday struck down a controversial election funding system that allowed individuals and companies to send unlimited donations to political parties without the need to disclose donor identity, a system critics have long said is undemocratic and favored Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party.
A five-judge constitution bench on the Supreme Court ruled that “electoral bonds” are unconstitutional and violate citizens' right to information held by the government. It ordered the government-owned State Bank of India to stop issuing these bonds and provide details of donations made through them to the Election Commission of India.
The electoral bond scheme was introduced by Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017. Before that, political parties in India had to disclose the identity of any donor who gave more than 20,000 rupees (about $240). But the latest instrument of political financing allowed them to declare the amount of money they received through the bonds, but not the funders’ identity.
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These bonds were sold in denominations ranging from 1,000 rupees ($12) to 10 million rupees ($120,000).
Modi’s party has said the bonds have reformed political finance by eliminating the use of cash, but critics say the system is opaque due to the anonymous nature of the donations. They also say the state-owned bank has a record of donors and recipients, which makes it easy for the government to access the information and influence donors.
The Supreme Court's verdict comes just months ahead of a national election and is seen as a setback to Modi’s ruling party, which has been the largest beneficiary of the system.
From 2018 to 2023, anonymous donors have given more than $1.9 billion to political parties through these bonds, according to Association for Democratic Reforms, an election watchdog. It said between 2018 and March 2022 nearly 57% of these donations went to Modi’s BJP. In comparison, the opposition Congress party has only received 10%.
Only registered political parties that received a minimum of 1% of votes in a previous election for the parliament or a state assembly were eligible to receive these bonds.
Protesting Indian farmers clash with police for a second day as they march toward the capital
Protesting Indian farmers clashed with police for a second consecutive day on Wednesday as tens of thousands tried to march to the capital to demand guaranteed prices for their produce.
Police fired tear gas at the farmers near the Shambhu border, which divides northern Punjab and Haryana states, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from New Delhi. TV images also showed police using drones to drop tear gas canisters on the farmers, who tried to break through barricades made of cement blocks and barbed wires.
Tens of thousands of farmers, traveling on trucks and wagons loaded with food and other supplies, began marching toward the capital on Tuesday after talks between farm leaders and government ministers failed to produce any consensus on their key demand for legislation guaranteeing a minimum support price for their produce.
Read: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opens stone-built Hindu temple in UAE ahead of India's elections
The farmers are also pressing the government to follow through on its promise to double their income, waive their loans and withdraw legal cases brought against them during earlier 2021 protests, when they camped on the capital’s outskirts to demonstrate against controversial agriculture laws. Prime Minister Narendra Modi later withdrew the laws in a rare retreat and promised to find ways to ensure minimum support prices for all farm produce.
Some farmer and trade unions have announced a countrywide rural strike on Friday.
“We don’t want the government to say that farmers were being invited for talks but they are not coming. So we said that we are ready to have a discussion,” Jagjit Singh Dallewal, a leader of one of the farmer groups, told reporters.
Police in riot gear maintained tight security at multiple entry points into New Delhi to prevent the farmers from entering the capital. They blocked major highways with barriers made of giant metal containers, barbed wire, spikes and cement blocks. Mobile internet was suspended for a second day in some areas of Haryana to prevent communication among the protesters.
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The march comes just months before a national election in which Modi is widely expected to win a third term. The protests could pose a significant challenge for him and his governing Bharatiya Janata Party because farmers form a key voting bloc.
The farmers have received support from opposition parties, which have condemned the government’s attempt to block them from reaching the capital.
On Tuesday, the main opposition Congress party said it would pass legislation providing minimum support prices if it is voted into power in the upcoming national election.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opens stone-built Hindu temple in UAE ahead of India's elections
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Middle East's first traditional stone-built Hindu temple on Wednesday, internationalizing both his reelection campaign and his effort to push secular India into a Hindu state.
The trip to the BAPS Hindu Mandir just north of the city of Abu Dhabi capped Modi's whistlestop tour of the United Arab Emirates during which the Indian leader embraced the UAE's president, describing him as a brother and also spoke before a global leaders at a Dubai summit.
Modi is widely expected to win a third term as prime minister in the upcoming elections in India, the world's largest democracy. But Modi's policies and his governing Bharatiya Janata Party have raised concerns over India's future, particularly for members of its Muslim minority as they have come under attack in recent years by Hindu nationalist groups.
That has made warming Indian relations with the Muslim-led Gulf Arab states crucial not only for India's energy security and for millions of its expatriate workers in the region, but also its international standing.
Read: Thousands of Indian farmers are marching to New Delhi to renew their demands over crop prices
“Every part of the time that God has given me and the body that God has given me are all for Mother India,” Modi told the crowd gathered at the temple, drawing rapturous cheers in what at times resembled a campaign stop.
Even Hindu priest Brahmaviharidas Swami, who helped build the temple, made a point to repeatedly praise Modi's work, calling him “the most beloved prime minister perhaps that India has ever had.”
The temple in Abu Mureikha was built by the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha or BAPS, a worldwide religious and civic organization within the Swaminarayan sect. Modi has close ties to the organization.
Modi walked past the temple's seven spires, a nod to the autocratic UAE's seven sheikhdoms. He looked inside the temple, where earlier Wednesday a priest had consecrated the statues of deities, each worshipped by different Hindu denominations across India.
Modi waved to thousands gathered for the event, described as a Festival of Harmony. Children greeted Modi, others cheered as he toured the temple with priests.
“Today, the United Arab Emirates has written a golden chapter in human history," Modi told the crowd. "A beautiful and divine temple is being inaugurated here. Many years of hard work have been involved behind this moment."
Back in India, Modi in January opened a Hindu temple built on the ruins of a historic mosque in the northern city of Ayodhya.
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That temple is dedicated to Hinduism’s Lord Ram and had been wanted by Hindus who describe it as restoring a religion suppressed by centuries of Mughal and British colonial rule. But the 1992 demolition of the mosque at the site trigged riots across India that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.
Earlier Wednesday, Modi spoke before the World Governments Summit in Dubai, hosted by the city-state's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Much of the speech could be seen as a stump speech on the global stage, describing his years in power as pushing for “minimum government, maximum governance.”
“Over the years, the trust of the people of the country on the government of India has become stronger,” Modi said. “People have full faith in both the intentions and commitments of our government.”
“It is as a friend to the world that India is moving forward," he said.
Modi's personal touch on the trip, including embracing Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, seems aimed at further cementing ties with the UAE, an oil-rich country that supplies India's energy needs while also serving as a home for some 3.5 million of his countrymen abroad. Modi at one point urged people to give Sheikh Mohammed a standing ovation at the event.
The relationship also underscores the Emirates’ realpolitik foreign policy. Modi received the Emirates’ top civilian honor in 2019 even as he stripped statehood from the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.
Indonesian defense chief linked to past rights abuses claims victory in presidential election
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, an ex-general linked to past human rights atrocities, claimed victory in Indonesia's presidential election on Wednesday based on unofficial tallies.
The 72-year-old candidate, who was once banned by the United States from entering for two decades due to his human rights record, told thousands of supporters in a sports stadium in the capital, Jakarta, that the victory, according to an early, unofficial “quick count,” was “the victory of all Indonesians.”
There was no declaration by electoral officials and the two former provincial governors who also contested the election in the world's third-largest democracy have not conceded defeat.
Subianto has presented himself as an heir to immensely popular sitting President Joko Widodo and vowed to continue his economic development plans. Subianto, who chose Widodo's son has his running mate, was an army general during the brutal period of the Suharto dictatorship that ended just over 25 years ago. He served as a special forces commander in a unit linked to torture and disappearances, allegations that he vehemently denies.
According to the unofficial tallies conducted by Indonesian polling agencies, Subianto had between 57% and 59% of votes, with more than 80% of the vote counted in polling places sampled.
The quick counts are based on the actual vote count at a sample of polling stations across Indonesia. The laborious official count may not be finished for up to a month, but quick counts have provided an accurate picture of the results of all four presidential elections held in Indonesia since it began direct voting in 2004.
“We are grateful for the quick count results,” he said in the speech, broadcast on national television. “We should not be arrogant, we should not be proud, we should not be euphoric, we still have to be humble, this victory must be a victory for all Indonesian people.”
To avoid a runoff against his rivals, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, Subianto needs more than 50% of all votes cast and at least 20% in each of the country’s provinces.
Widodo’s successor will inherit an economy with impressive growth and ambitious infrastructure projects, including the ongoing transfer of the nation’s capital from congested Jakarta to the frontier island of Borneo at a staggering cost exceeding $30 billion.
The election also has high stakes for the United States and China, since Indonesia has a huge domestic market, natural resources like nickel and palm oil, and diplomatic influence with its Southeast Asian neighbors.
Widodo’s rise from a riverside slum to the presidency has shown the vibrancy of Indonesia’s democracy in a region rife with authoritarian regimes.
But with a leading candidate linked to a former dictator, and Widodo’s son on the ballot, some observers fear that democracy is eroding.
Indonesians voted on Wednesday in an election that took just six hours. The logistics of the vote across the tropical nation's 17,000 islands inhabited by 270 million people were daunting: Ballot boxes and ballots were transported by boats, motorcycles, horses and on foot in some of the more far-flung locations.
Aside from the presidency, some 20,000 national, provincial and district parliamentary posts were contested by tens of thousands of candidates in one of the world's largest elections, which authorities said concluded with no major problems. About 10,000 aspirants from 18 political parties eyed the national parliament’s 580 seats alone.
Voters interviewed by The Associated Press expressed hope their next leader would help them achieve greater prosperity in a country where nearly a tenth of the population still lives in poverty.
“I hope Indonesia can progress better and that I did not vote for the wrong person,” said Indra Nurohim, a 17-year-old high school student and first-time voter. “I hope we will have a better government.”
Subianto, the oldest presidential candidate at 72, lost in two previous runs to Widodo but was the front-runner in independent surveys. His running mate, Widodo's eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, was allowed to run when the Constitutional Court made an exception to the minimum age requirement of 40. The court was then headed by Widodo’s brother-in-law, who was removed by an ethics panel for not recusing himself, and Widodo was accused of favoritism and nepotism.
Critics have accused Widodo of trying to build a political dynasty despite him being the first president to emerge from outside the political and military elite since the 1998 end of the dictatorial rule of Suharto, characterized by widespread human rights violations, plunder and political unrest.
Subianto, a former lieutenant general who married one of Suharto's daughters, was a longtime commander in the army special forces, called Kopassus. He was dishonorably discharged in 1998 after Kopassus forces kidnapped and tortured political opponents of Suharto.
Of at least 22 activists kidnapped that year, 13 remain missing to this day, and their families protest weekly outside the presidential palace demanding the activists be accounted for. Subianto never faced a trial and denied any involvement, although several of his men were tried and convicted.
During the campaign period that concluded last weekend, Subianto and his strategists used AI and social media platforms like TikTok to soften his image by portraying him as a cuddly grandfather to his youthful running mate. Rejected by human rights activists, he danced on the campaign stage and promised to generate nearly 20 million jobs in his first term if elected.
Baswedan, the former head of an Islamic university, served as governor of Jakarta until last year. A former Fulbright scholar, Baswedan was education and culture minister from 2014 to 2016, when Widodo removed him from the Cabinet after accusing him of failing to address problems of thousands of students affected by forest fires.
Baswedan opposes Widodo’s plan to move the Indonesian capital from Jakarta to Nusantara on Borneo island, which involves constructing government buildings and residential enclaves by clearing lush tropical rainforests.
In an interview with the AP last month, he said democracy in Indonesia is under threat, given Subianto’s choice of the president's son as running mate.
“This means that there is a decline in trust, it means that our democracy is experiencing a decline in quality, it means that many legal rules are being bent,” he said.
Pranowo is the governing party candidate but does not have Widodo's support. He was a national legislator for the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle for 10 years before being elected in 2013 for the first of two terms as governor of the vote-rich Central Java region.
While governor, Pranowo refused to allow Israel to participate in the Under-20 FIFA World Cup to be held in his province. FIFA subsequently dropped Indonesia as host of the games, angering Indonesian soccer fans and Widodo.
Israel and Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, do not have diplomatic ties.
Under Widodo, Indonesia saw a period of remarkable growth averaging 5% annually, except in 2020, when the economy contracted due to the coronavirus pandemic.
His economic roadmap, called “Golden Indonesia 2045,” projects Indonesia becoming one of the world’s top five economies with GDP of up to $9 trillion, exactly a century after it won independence from Dutch colonizers.