Navalny’s friends knew he was willing to become a martyr if that’s what it took to stand up to Putin.

Navalny’s friends knew he was willing to become a martyr if that’s what it took to stand up to Putin.

Alexei Navalny’s long struggle against President Putin began with a humorous blog and culminated in repeated demonstrations of his willingness to risk his own life. According to the Russian authorities on Friday, he has now died in prison.

Russia’s leading opposition voice has been silenced.

Other dissident figures went into exile or died in mysterious circumstances over the past decade, leaving Navalny as the last national figure with a dedicated following.

Though he had been arrested many times before, Navalny’s defining moment in the eyes of many Russians came after the attempt to assassinate him with Novichok. He recuperated in the sanctuary of a German hospital but chose to defy Putin and return to Russia in January 2021, knowing full well he would end up in prison.

    • Iceman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      83·
      4 months ago

      Him being the opposition was apparently good enough. Never mind that he was a Russian nationalist that definitely supports the annexation of Ukraine and the ethnic cleansing of Caucasians. A real meat old boss, same as old boss situation.

      • uis@lemm.eeEnglish
        63·
        4 months ago

        Under what rock did you live for last 10 years? This doesn’t look like support.

        • Arcity 🇵🇸🇺🇦English
          32·
          4 months ago

          "The oppositionist added that if Crimea is annexed, the Russian economy will weaken, and this, in turn, may lead to the desire of some subjects of the Federation to secede from the country. " - your source Ah yes, what a sweetheart. He doesn’t think it is good to annex Crimea. Yet he wants to continue using the Black Sea and I assume the military bases in Crimea and use it to keep Ukraine out of NATO. So same goal as Putin, just thinks annexing was a mistake strategically not morally.

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
            24·
            4 months ago

            Yet he wants to continue using the Black Sea and I assume the military bases in Crimea

            Well, that was the situation after the dissolution of USSR. Makes sense preserving it.

            and use it to keep Ukraine out of NATO

            Where did you get that?

            In Russian-speaking Web the only relatively recent quote by him people accusing him can find is “Crimea is not a sandwich to be given or taken”. Especially Ukrainians clutch to that to the end.

            Well, see, Crimea is really not a sandwich, it’s a piece of land inhabited by people, and yes, a real referendum is more important than Ukrainian laws.

            I was disgusted by that “referendum” because it was fake, while many Ukrainians on the Web because they are against referendums they don’t like. Well, too bad.

      • Arcity 🇵🇸🇺🇦English
        68·
        4 months ago

        Finally a sane take. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. I hate how western media is whitewashing the likes of Kissinger and Navalny.

    • mellowheat@suppo.fiEnglish
      42·
      4 months ago

      If I may quote https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/16/obit-navalny-putins-archenemy-and-anti-corruption-champion

      Beginning in the late 2000s, Navalny used racial slurs when describing ethnic Georgians, called for the deportation of Muslim migrant workers and delivered speeches at Russian Marches, annual rallies of far-right nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

      “It was a long time ago,” Alexander Verkhovsky, head of the Moscow-based Sova hate crimes monitor, told Al Jazeera in 2021, describing Navalny as “a different man now”.

      https://www.rightsinrussia.org/aleksandr-verkhovsky/ doesn’t seem like a pro-fascist (although I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody made such a story up, now that he has defended Navalny), so I’m supposing his opinion in this is good enough. Calling Navalny a fascist at this point seems like a tankie talking point specifically designed to denounce the message he was putting out in his last years.

      “We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.” – Aristotle

      • Iceman@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        Call me a cynic, but that just screams “I am in Russian prison, my hopes for a Russian uprising uprising didn’t happen and my only hope is appeasing the west”. No world leaders have made such drastic changes in ideology over merely a decade.

        • mellowheat@suppo.fiEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          I guess that’s possible, but also possible that your own country poisoning you and then imprisoning you can do wonders for your nationalistic tendencies.