Alexeï Navalny died this Friday at the age of 47. A look back at a life of struggle which made him the main opponent of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
The death of Alexeï Navalny was announced on Friday February 16 by the Russian prison administration. The 47-year-old man breathed his last in the Kharp penitentiary center, known as the “polar wolf”, located in the Russian Arctic, where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism”. It was only the latest in a long series of convictions by Russian justice which he denounced as so many political trials organized to repress his opposition to the regime. Who was Vladimir Putin’s number 1 enemy?
Born on June 4, 1976, Alexeï Navalny grew up in the suburbs of Moscow. He spends part of his vacation in Ukraine, where his father is from. After studying law, notably at the American University of Yale, he was a lawyer in a real estate development company. He began to take action against corruption in Russiafirst by keeping a blog, then by creating the Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2011.
Series of arrests and stays in prison
The same year, Navalny participated in the contestation of the Russian legislative elections, which earned him two weeks in prison. Upon his release, he fully engaged in opposition to Vladimir Putin, a year before the presidential election, and quickly established himself as his main opponent.
From then on, arrests, trials and stays in prison will follow one another in the life of Alexeï Navalny. A first trial for embezzlement sentenced him to five years in prison, suspended in 2013. The same year, he ran for municipal elections as mayor of Moscow and led a very anti-immigration campaign. He lost to the outgoing mayor, placed by Vladimir Putin. In 2016, Navalny announced his candidacy for the 2018 presidential election. But he was declared ineligible due to a previous conviction by the courts.
Novichok poisoning
On August 20, 2020, Alexeï Navalny was the victim of an assassination attempt by poisoning, during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. He is transferred and treated in Germany, where analyzes confirm Novichok poisoning. The episode is the source of a rise in tensions between Germany and Russia. From January 17, 2021, Navalny deliberately boarded a plane to return to Russia.
He was arrested as soon as he landed and was reproached for not having honored the obligatory summons as part of his conditional release, throughout his convalescence in Germany. For these violations, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. The verdict was denounced abroad, notably by French President Emmanuel Macron, and caused major demonstrations in Russia.
In March 2022, during a new trial, Alexeï Navalny received nine years of internment in “severe regime” for fraud. In July 2023, another court sentenced him to 19 years in prison for “extremism”. In December, he was transferred to the “Polar Wolf” penal colony in the Russian Arctic. This is where he will end his days, two months later, this Friday February 16, 2023, in circumstances which are still the subject of many questions.