Western leaders have held Vladimir Putin responsible for Alexei Navalny’s death in prison, where he had been sentenced to 19 years under a “special regime”.
Navalny’s death – a pivotal moment for the country’s fractured pro-democracy movement – sent waves of anger and despair through the ranks of his supporters in Russia and abroad.
Six Russians share their reaction and what they believe his death will mean for Russia’s future.
‘My friends and I are devastated’
My friends and I are devastated: we lost someone who played a crucial part in our lives.
Navalny’s positive energy always gave me hope that everything would be OK. Rationally, I understood that it would be tough for him to be freed [from prison]. But, emotionally, I never doubted he would be free.
We’re all chatting together to support each other. He was our hero who united the opposition. Navalny gave us a Russian dream, that maybe in a decade we’d live in a free Russia.
There is still opposition. Although it’s very difficult, there are still people who support Ukraine and want peace negotiations. We love our country and want the best for it.
Nikolai*, 22, student in Moscow
‘Navalny chose to become a symbolic figure of resistance’
I’ve never been a supporter of Navalny as a politician – he is too on the right of the political spectrum and I’m on the left. However, I respect him as a man of courage. Having survived an assassination attempt, he could have stayed safe in the EU, but he returned to Russia. Certainly, he knew what he was heading into. But he returned, following his principles.
Navalny never was a real political competitor. He had a good base among urban middle classes, mainly limited to Moscow and somewhat in St Petersburg. But outside Moscow, Russia is very different – pro-western liberalism just doesn’t sell. Putin understands that very well. Even with free elections he [Navalny] wouldn’t have become leader. We all know what happens to Putin’s critics; I suppose it seemed inevitable.
By returning to Russia, Navalny chose to become a symbolic figure of resistance, and will go down in history as someone who died for his political stance. He definitely will become a postmortem figure of resistance – but it will take years to regain this ground and find someone else. Now, the resistance has been beheaded.
Ekaterina*, 39, policy worker in Malta
‘It’s easy to call for a mass uprising from a safe country’
The saddest part is that Alexey’s life and death will mean nothing for Russian politics. At least, for many years to come, unless the regime changes.
A lot of my western friends say that this must be the last [straw] for Russians opposing Putin, and they will take it to the streets now. Unfortunately, they won’t. Some people will, knowing that they will be going to jail. But most people won’t.
It’s easy to call for a mass uprising from a safe country; but would you join a protest knowing that the police will capture and torture you? Imprisoned for years? Or dead? Very few people are ready to sacrifice themselves like that, like Alexey.
Some of my family members in Russia support Putin and the war in Ukraine, and I’ve stopped talking to them. People in the west see him as a big opposition figure, but most people in Russia have no access to another point of view – in their minds, Navalny is a criminal jailed for the right reasons and the Russian media will shrug their shoulders and say he died of poor health.
Elena, 39, office worker, UK
‘There was support for him’
I’ve never been a Navalny supporter. I couldn’t accept his participation in the demonstrations along with Russian far-right nationalist organisations, especially as I’m from a non-Slavic Russian region. But he changed. He became a more mature politician. There was support for him in many places – in January 2021, there were protests across Russia.
We left Russia in 2022; I’d been an activist in Russia for years before that, protesting against Putin. Back then, there was hope that younger generations could change something, despite the repression. Now, there is no hope and only fear – I think things changed with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After the invasion, it was clear that there is no future in Russia – it was a choice between prison or freedom abroad. Our acquaintances were arrested, and police were coming to our door with warnings about our activism.
Ksenia, 33, PhD student, UK
‘It will signal to others to not oppose the government’
Navalny’s death will signal to other politicians to not even try to mess with the [government]. After being jailed, Navalny posed virtually no threat for the authorities in Russia. It already feels like we’re living in constant fear of not [saying] or doing anything wrong. It will get even worse now.
Navalny was popular among young people – those watching YouTube and using social media – and also opened some others’ eyes with his corruption investigations. Where I live in Siberia, there was some support, but I think it was limited.
People already do not have freedom to express their opinion publicly or on social media. And this results in people adopting absurd ideas from state propaganda, as no alternative points of view are allowed and there is little challenging of propaganda.
There’s an environment of fear – people are afraid of speaking out, even privately with people they don’t know well. People just try to cope with their lives.
Mikhail, 29, engineer in Siberia
‘We have been ready to grieve him for a long time now’
His death feels very personal, even though I wasn’t the target group for his politics. I’m a migrant from central Asia, and he was openly anti-migration in his early days, but that rhetoric stopped.
Also, I think his team’s strategy was to appeal to the younger crowd, the less scared, the more cosmopolitan, and more capable of feeling shock at the news. They are the ones now flooding the comment sections on Telegram chats. Young people used to be seen as apolitical – but he managed to turn that around and mobilise people. This is one of his legacies – people in their 20s are most vocal about his death and most willing to do something.
His death doesn’t feel shocking. We are used to sudden deaths here. Navalny is the single most charismatic politician in contemporary Russian history, but we have been ready to grieve him for a long time now.
Anna, 43, translator in Moscow
*Names have been changed
