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And with worldviews now focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin amid his brutal invasion of Ukraine, Navalny’s message of resistance is gaining new weight inside and outside Russia, even as he remains behind bars.
Here’s what you need to know about Navalny’s political rise, assassination attempt and Russia’s future.
Rise to prominence
Navalny first became famous in 2008 when he began blogging about alleged corruption in Russian state-owned companies. Until 2011, he emerged as one of the leaders of the mass protests that erupted after allegations of fraud in the parliamentary elections.
“Those who have gathered here may kick these thieving assholes ***** out of the Kremlin tomorrow,” Navalny told a 2011 protest.
In July 2013, he posted his first video on YouTube, a step-by-step guide showing how to build an “agitation cube”, a tent structure similar to a box with his image decorated on the side. The video marked the beginning of the Russian dissident. the campaign to be elected mayor of Moscow and the humble beginning of his revolution on YouTube.
But his movement was blunted when he was convicted of embezzlement just as he was preparing to run for mayor. Navalny denied the allegations, calling them politically motivated. A retrial in 2017 barred him from running for public office, this time for president against Putin.
While Navalny is best known as an activist, his investigations have been the biggest thorn in the side of some of Russia’s most influential people. His videos of the apparent inexplicable wealth of senior government officials have angered the Kremlin.
A video of former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev garnered more than 35 million views on YouTube.
But with the increased results came the increased risks. In March 2017, this video sparked the biggest anti-government protests Russia has seen in years. Thousands took part in rallies in almost 100 cities in Russia. Navalny himself was arrested and imprisoned for 15 days.
The following month, he was sprayed with antiseptic green paint, which damaged his eyesight in one eye.
“Listen, I have something very obvious to tell you. You are not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means we are incredibly strong,” Navalny told supporters in the CNN film.
“We have to use that power, not give up, remember that we are a huge force that is suppressed by these bad guys. We don’t realize how strong we really are.”
Poisoning and recovery
By 2020, there were signs that the ground was shifting under Navalny’s opposition movement.
The Kremlin had taken a more public confrontational stance against its main critic, culminating in accusations of attempted poisoning in August of that year.
Navalny began to feel unwell on the return flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. A loud moan is heard in the videos, apparently recorded from the flight he took. Another video, apparently recorded through the window of the plane, shows a motionless man being carried on a stretcher on wheels to an ambulance.
Navalny was treated at a hospital in Berlin, and the German government later concluded that he had been poisoned by a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group.
A joint investigation by CNN and the Bellingcat group involved the Russian Security Service (FSB) in Navalny’s poisoning, bringing together an elite agency in the agency to follow Navalny’s team on a trip to Siberia when Navalny fell ill from contact with Novichok.
The investigation also found that the unit, which includes chemical weapons experts, has tracked Navalny on more than 30 trips to and from Moscow since 2017. Russia denies involvement in Navalny’s poisoning. Putin himself said in December that if Russia’s security services wanted to kill Navalny, they “would have done the job.”
However, several Western officials and Navalny himself have openly blamed the Kremlin.
“It’s impossible to believe. It’s kind of silly that the whole idea of chemical weapons poisoning, what the hell?” says Navalny in the new CNN film. “That’s why it’s so clever, because even sensible people refuse to believe, like: what? Come on … poisonous? Seriously?”
The news that Navalny is seriously ill has sent a new wave of shock to Russian society, drawing alarming parallels with some of Russia’s more brazen political assassinations in the recent past.
Western governments, independent researchers and Russian observers have noted a persistent pattern of Russian involvement in the killings, both in Russia and abroad.
Opposition behind bars
After a five-month stay in Germany recovering from the Novice poisoning, Navalny was immediately arrested when he returned to Moscow last year for violating the probation period imposed by a 2014 case.
He was sent to a penal colony, where he went on a hunger strike to protest the refusal of prison officials to provide him with access to medical care, while continuing to monitor Putin’s government in front and in the center.
During a hearing last year, the visibly skinny Navalny used the platform to launch a broad party against the Russian leader and his government, likening him to the stupid “naked king” of the children’s tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and calling on the judge and prosecutors “traitors” .
“I would like to say that your king is naked and more than a little boy is shouting about it – now millions of people are already shouting about it. This is quite obvious. Twenty years of incompetent government have come to this: The crown is slipping from his ears, “Navalny told Putin, referring to mass anti-government protests in Russia after the activist’s arrest and hunger strike.
“Your naked king wants to rule until the end. He doesn’t care about the country, he is stuck in power and he wants to rule indefinitely,” Navalny said.
Days after he ended his hunger strike, Navalny’s network of regional offices for his political movement was “officially disbanded,” according to his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov.
The offices were originally set up in February 2017 to organize activities for volunteers during the Russian presidential election campaign. After the election, regional offices took on other local political work.
But perhaps the biggest blow to his movement came last month, when Navalny was convicted by Moscow’s Lefortovo court on charges of stealing from his Anti-Corruption Foundation. He was sentenced to another nine years in prison with the highest regime.
After the verdict was announced, Navalny wrote on Twitter: “9 years. Well, as the characters in my favorite TV series, The Wire, said: “You only do it for two days. This is the day you enter and the day you leave. “He added:” I even had a T-shirt with that slogan, but the prison authorities confiscated it, considering the press extremist. “
However, his convictions do not waver.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Navalny turned to social media to condemn the attack, calling for anti-war protests across the country as “the backbone of the war and death movement,” according to Reuters.
In another tweet, Navalny said: “I am very grateful to everyone for their support. And, boys, I want to say: the best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind words, but action. Any action against Putin’s fraudulent and thieving regime. Any opposition to these war criminals. “
Thousands in Russia were detained for anti-war demonstrations in the coming weeks, including in Moscow and St. Petersburg. A young woman whom CNN met on the outskirts of the first night of the protest last month was close to tears, explaining that she loves Russia but not its leader, and has come to the conclusion that she must leave the country.
There is real disappointment in this generation, but they are a minority – less than 10% of the nation.
Indeed, a recent poll by the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research (VCIOM), a state-run yet internationally respected organization, found that 68% of people say they support the decision to conduct the “Special Military Operation” that Putin announced. with false accusations of Nazism and genocide in Ukraine; 22% oppose and 10% have difficulty responding.
A sobering assessment is that when Putin puts his finger on the wind of public opinion, he can be quite sure that it is blowing in the direction in which he instructs his government to set it up.
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