Alexei Navalny practically predicted this. Russia’s foremost opposition leader and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, who was serving a 19-year prison sentence on a range of charges he called politically motivated, said in a 2022 documentary that “if they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong”.
The death of Mr Navalny, aged 47, at an Arctic penal colony, is both shocking yet grimly predictable. From journalists to politicians, those brave enough to publicly oppose the power or corruption of the Russian state frequently find themselves mysteriously sick or dead. Mr Navalny had already survived an attempt on his life, when he was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020.
