Germany The first anniversary of Navalny's death - Putin continues to hunt down opponents
The memory of Alexei Navalny lives on, but the Russian power apparatus fears it. A year ago, the opposition leader, the most important opponent of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, was tortured to death in the "Polar Wolf" penal camp in the Arctic region. Despite the threat of repression and police surveillance, people lay flowers at his grave in the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow. At the same time, the judiciary throughout Russia continues to take rigorous action against dissidents.
16.02.2025, 07:22
SDA
Above all, the hundreds of political prisoners are intended to act as a deterrent and nip any spirit of resistance in the bud. The list of imprisoned opponents of Putin and his war of aggression against Ukraine is long. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization Memorial, which is banned in Moscow, lists 785 political prisoners. Three of Navalny's lawyers were sentenced to long prison terms in January for defending Putin's opponent. And Navalny, who was only 47 years old on the day of his death on February 16, is not the only one to die in captivity.
Political persecution continues unabated after Navalny's death
Anyone who stylizes Navalny as a role model or supports his anti-corruption fund FBK risks many years in prison for extremism. Navalny's political movement against the widespread culture of bribery and abuse of power is banned. And even after his death, the laws against dissenters in Russia continue to be tightened. His supporters working in exile, and not least his widow Yulia Navalnya, must also fear for their lives in the EU.
Shortly before the anniversary of Navalny's death, the Russian foreign intelligence service SWR publicly warned of possible attacks on representatives of the Russian opposition abroad. Putin's espionage apparatus claimed that the Ukrainian secret service was planning such acts and wanted to blame them on Russia. However, opposition figure Ilya Yashin, who was released in a prisoner exchange last year, makes it clear that this is more of an open threat typical of the Kremlin: no opponent of Putin should be able to feel safe - no matter where.
Opposition in Russia largely eliminated
The Kremlin has largely shut down critical media and the opposition. Many of Putin's opponents remain silent out of fear for their lives. At best, only the feeble remnants of a liberal opposition are still active in the country. The founder of the opposition party Yabloko, which is still represented at least at local level, Grigori Yavlinsky, is also calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine in view of the rapprochement between the USA and Russia.
"The very first task now is to achieve a ceasefire. Without that, there can be no positive changes," says Yavlinsky, who repeatedly gives interviews. Yabloko, of which Navalny was also once a member for a time, has long complained about the increasingly authoritarian course under Kremlin boss Putin.
Putin opponents in exile have a hard time
Opponents of the Kremlin abroad also have a hard time, albeit in a different way. Many have been in exile for a long time, others have fled during the almost three years of the war against Ukraine. Opposition figures Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Mursa as well as Oleg Orlov from Memorial had to leave Russia against their will.
Now there is no link back to a base in Russia, no common strategy - and, for the time being, no prospect of changing the situation. "To be honest, I don't think they will play a major role in influencing this regime in one way or another," says political scientist Jan Matti Dollbaum. The assistant professor at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland has researched the Russian opposition.
You don't necessarily have to be present in the country. "But you have to be able to at least mobilize people in Russia to take some kind of action. And that is very difficult." Nevertheless, Dollbaum believes that the work of the exiled opposition is useful because it creates channels of communication with a potential elite for a post-Putin era.
Navalny's foundation continues to shoot exposé videos
Navalny's organization FBK continues to research corruption in the Russian elite from the outside and produces juicy investigative videos. The most recent was about alleged escort girls in the state-controlled oil company Rosneft. However, the Navalny people are no longer calling for symbolic resistance actions in Russia - the risk is too great for those who would join in.
Yulia Navalny has announced that she will continue the work of her dead husband. "If they think they can kill Alexei and that will end everything, then they are mistaken," she said in an interview with Time. "I have seen how this loss affects many people deeply, deeply, and I really want to support them, to give them some kind of hope."
Navalnaya had impressively proven that the loss did not make her incapable of acting, Dollbaum told the German Press Agency. "On the contrary, she may have drawn strength from it to continue his cause." He has doubts as to whether she can have the same public impact as her charismatic husband. "He was able to formulate Russia's problems succinctly from his liberal point of view, point them out with humor and derive calls for action from them."
Demos and anti-war committees
From Berlin, Putin opponent Yashin tours the European capitals to encourage the young Russian emigration. Together with Kara-Mursa and Navalnaya, he organizes demonstrations against Putin and the war in Ukraine. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company and then a political prisoner for ten years, promotes opposition projects and media from exile. A Russian anti-war committee founded in 2022 includes Khodorkovsky, Kara-Mursa, former world chess champion Gari Kasparov and former MP Dmitry Gudkov.
What weakens the exiled opposition, however, is its internal division. It is a strategic dispute over direction, money, alleged proximity to Russian state power and vanity. The Navalny camp sees itself as the avant-garde and is therefore reluctant to form alliances with others.
One year after Navalny's death and three years after the start of the war, the Russian exile media outlet "Meduza" wrote: "The exile opposition is in crisis."
This is probably also why Navalnaya called on the West to work together with the "millions of Russians" in exile in a speech at the Munich Security Conference. They all hoped to return to Russia as soon as this was possible. And they are tackling another major project on the bitter anniversary: A monument to Navalny, the fighter for a free Russia, is soon to be erected at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow.
