In the stylish Vilnius offices of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Alexei Navalny’s name is mounted on the office wall in neon lights; his portrait hangs in some of the conference rooms. But the man himself is not here, at the headquarters in exile of the foundation he founded. He’s locked away in a Russian jail cell.
A lot has changed in the three years since Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition politician, was poisoned with novichok nerve agent during a trip to Siberia. He returned to Russia in January 2021 after recovering in Germany, was arrested on arrival and later given an 11-year jail sentence.
Earlier this month, Navalny received a new, 19-year sentence in a new trial held inside prison, for a range of supposed crimes including extremism, the rehabilitation of Nazism and inciting children to dangerous acts.
Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh, who was with him when he was poisoned and now lives in Vilnius, insisted the recent extension of the sentence had little psychological effect on him.
“Alexei understands fully that the length of the term has no meaning; it’s all the same as long as Putin is in power,” she said, in an interview in Vilnius.
The new office is bigger, brighter and sleeker than the foundation’s old headquarters, located in a business centre in Moscow’s Avtozavodskaya district. There is a proper studio for recording the Navalny team’s content, numerous conference rooms and various chill-out areas.
The biggest difference, though, is that it is not in Russia. Before his poisoning, Navalny had built up a bigger network of supporters in the regions than any other opposition force, setting up regional headquarters across Russia as part of his failed attempt to stand against Putin in 2018 presidential elections.
That’s all gone now. The Anti-Corruption Foundation was designated “extremist” in summer 2021, rendering all its activities illegal. More than 1,000 associates left the country. A few remained and were put on trial.
From Vilnius, the core team records daily news bulletins and discussion streams, as well as occasional major corruption investigations.
The latest, a 35-minute video released late last month, recounts the story of a luxury yacht that apparently belongs to Vladimir Putin, which was rapidly withdrawn from a German repair workshop in the weeks leading up to the war with Ukraine, to avoid sanctions. It’s a classic Navalny investigation, even if it can’t feature the man himself – full of wry asides, sarcastic digs at the Russian leader and persuasive, eye-popping details.
The videos often get millions of views, and according to Yarmysh, the vast majority of them come from people inside Russia, allowing the organisation to connect with Russians even though they have no physical presence in the country.
But how to turn this engagement into meaningful opposition is a dilemma that all Russian opposition political forces are now facing. Some of the other exiles have criticised the Navalny crew for refusing to join forces and present a common anti-Kremlin front. The Anti-Corruption Foundation was a notable absence from a conference held in June in the European parliament aimed at bringing together all the Russian opposition to discuss what the contours of a post-Putin Russia might look like.
“We are happy to cooperate when there’s a concrete goal, but just to sit at a round table, shake people’s hands and sign declarations doesn’t seem very interesting,” said Yarmysh. “We don’t want to use up our reputation on pointless talks,” she added.
The team has also been rocked by internal controversy, when it emerged that key figure Leonid Volkov had signed a letter backing the removal of Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman from western sanctions lists without the knowledge of others in the office. Volkov stepped back from his leadership role in response, though he is still part of the team.
Adjusting to life as an exiled political force was never going to be easy. Many of the former regional staff are now focused on building new lives, scattered across Europe in different countries. In Amsterdam, 25-year-old Olga Kuznetsova, who had worked for Navalny in the city of Kostroma, said she had become less political since leaving Russia.
“People outside the country can’t change what’s going on there. I don’t even know how people feel who are left behind, I don’t have a way to influence events. I am now focusing on integrating here, I am learning the language and hope to become an actress,” she said, on the sidelines of a rally to mark the third anniversary of Navalny’s poisoning, one of many arranged in different cites across the globe.
Alexander Zykov, another activist from Navalny’s Kostroma office, spent 10 months living in a Dutch refugee centre while his asylum application was processed. He missed the rally on Sunday and said while he still supports Navalny personally, he feels the foundation has lost its way since Navalny’s arrest.
“Their priority seems to be lobbying sanctions in the west rather than helping people in the country,” he said.
As debates continue about the most fruitful form of opposition from abroad, the situation for Navalny himself is worsening. Irritated by his continuing ability to get political messages out from prison, guards have repeatedly confined him to a punishment cell, ostensibly for minor infractions of prison rules.
“By the time he gets out this time, he will have spent 207 days there out of the past year,” said Yarmysh. She added that authorities had deliberately moved another prisoner with mental health problems to the cell next to Navalny. “He screams for 16 hours per day, sometimes he barks or howls. Sometimes he talks in different voices to himself,” she said.
Those who know Navalny say that, from the moment he awoke from a coma after the poisoning, there was never any doubt that he would return to Russia. But the Ukraine war fundamentally changed the political context, and some now have sense of “what if” about what an at-liberty Navalny might be doing as the grim invasion grinds on.
“He was without question the number one skilful communicator with ordinary people, no one is comparable,” said Vladimir Milov, a long-standing Navalny ally, who is also now based in Vilnius.
“If he was free, we would have had a totally different level of anti-war message for the entire country. It was really a lost opportunity. But we are where we are,” he said, wistfully.
The new verdict limits Navalny’s ability to communicate with lawyers and associates, and a further court case, accusing Navalny of terrorism, is due in the coming months. Nobody is under any illusions that his only hope of release is for Putin to be ousted from power, or for a miraculous deal that sees Navalny freed and allowed to go into exile.
“I perfectly understand that, like many political prisoners, I am sitting on a life sentence. Where life is measured by the term of my life or the term of life of this regime,” Navalny said in a message from prison posted online after the latest verdict.
There are periodic rumours that western capitals want to include Navalny as part of a possible exchange of prisoners between Russia and the west, although Russia has given no indication it would be amenable to releasing Navalny.
Sergei Guriev, an economist and long-standing Navalny ally who is current provost of Sciences Po in Paris, said it was important for world leaders to lobby for Navalny to be included in any possible prisoner swap.
Guriev said he knew from “direct and indirect communication” with Navalny that if released now, the politician would not return to Russia as long as Putin remains in power.
“The situation has changed. He cannot work in Russia, he cannot employ anyone. If he were to be exchanged or somehow managed to leave, he would stay away. He’s not crazy and this time around he would not come back,” said Guriev.
