Putin Critic Alexei Navalny Dies in Russian Prison

Russia’s leading opposition figure and vocal Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, died Friday in an Arctic Circle prison.

Navalny, 47, was serving a multi-decade sentence on corruption charges, widely denounced by the international community as political retribution. 

At a conference on Friday afternoon, his widow, Yulia, responded to the report of his death by blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin, and called for justice.

“If it's true, I would like Putin and all his staff, everybody around him, his government, his friends, I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family and with my husband,” she told the annual meeting of Western security officials to gasps in the audience. “They will be brought to justice and this day will come soon."

Russia’s state news service Tass announced Navalny’s death Friday afternoon, describing him as a “blogger”.

Navalny was the most credible and outspoken critic of Putin over the last decade, running candidates for office, conducting open source investigations into Putin and other Russian oligarchs' wealth from corruption. His anti-corruption work was the subject of the 2023 Oscar award-winning documentary, Navalny.

These activities and a willingness to confront an increasingly autocratic Putin infuriated the Kremlin and eventually led to corruption and slander convictions considered absurd by outside observers, alongside a near fatal poisoning attempt on his life in 2020. 

Navalny’s legal and political team, mostly based outside Russia due to fear of arrest, could not immediately confirm his death. Last year when he was moved to Penal Colony No. 3 his team accused authorities of moving him to one of Russia’s most remote and toughest Arctic prisons to limit his communications and access to health care. 

“On February 16, 2024, in Penal Colony No. 3, the convict Alexei Navalny felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness, according to representatives of the department,” sai a statement from Russian prison authorities.

“Medical personnel from the institution arrived promptly, and an ambulance crew was called. All necessary resuscitation measures were carried out, but unfortunately, they did not yield positive results. The emergency medical team pronounced the convict dead. The cause of death is being investigated,” the statement added.

“As far as we’re aware, in accordance with all the rules, the prison service is carrying out checks and clarifications,” Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov told reporters, according to CNN. 

As the only credible opposition politician in an increasingly Putin-dominated Russia, Navalny had long irritated the regime, eventually accusing Russian intelligence of orchestrating a poisoning with nerve agents in August 2020 that he only survived after treatment in a Berlin hospital. While recovering in Germany, Russian prosecutors indicted Navalny on a cascade of charges related to his political activity, including insulting the veterans of World War Two, and arrested him on his return to Russia in January 2021.

International leaders immediately condemned what many weren’t shy about describing as his murder.

“It’s obvious” that Putin killed him, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Navalny’s health has substantially deteriorated over the course of his three-year incarceration as he grew increasingly gaunt and frail in a series of court appearances on a series of charges that eventually led to a 19-year sentence expected to increase to 30 years after a perfunctory appeal of new convictions. 

In December his legal team announced that Navalny had disappeared from his prison cell and transferred to an unknown facility. After filing hundreds of requests for information on the transfer over 10 days before prison authorities announced Navalny had been moved to one of the most remote prisons in Russia, where contact with his legal team and medical care was restricted.

His reported death comes one day after a video court appearance where an extremely gaunt Navalny joked with the judge about the number of fines he’d accrued for minor prison infractions.