What is Navalny’s legacy for Russia?

That is the very best day of the previous 5 months for me … That is my residence … I’m not afraid of something and I urge you to not be afraid of something both.

These have been Alexei Navalny’s phrases after touchdown at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport on January 17 2021. Russia’s main opposition determine had spent the previous months recovering in Germany from an try on his life by the Russian Federal Safety Service (FSB). Minutes after making his feedback, Navalny was detained at border management. And he would stay behind bars till his demise on February 16 2024, within the distant “Polar Wolf” penal colony inside the Arctic Circle.

“Why did he return to Russia?” That’s the query I’m requested about Navalny most often. Wasn’t it a mistake to return to sure imprisonment, when he might have maintained his opposition to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, from overseas?

However Navalny’s choice to return didn’t shock me. I’ve researched and written about him extensively, together with co-authoring Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?, the primary English-language, book-length account of his life and political actions. Defying the Kremlin by returning was a signature transfer, reflecting each his obstinacy and bravado. He needed to verify his supporters and activists in Russia didn’t really feel deserted, risking their lives whereas he lived a comfortable life in exile.

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Moreover, Navalny wasn’t returning to sure imprisonment. A detailed ally of his, Vladimir Ashurkov, instructed me in Might 2022 that his “incarceration in Russia was not a certainty. It was a likelihood, a state of affairs – however it wasn’t like he was strolling right into a sure long-term jail time period.”

Additionally, Navalny hadn’t chosen to go away Russia within the first place. He was unconscious when taken by aircraft from Omsk to Berlin for remedy following his poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok in August 2020. Navalny had been constant in saying he was a Russian politician who wanted to stay in Russia to be efficient.

In a subsequent interview, performed in a forest on the outskirts of the German capital as he slowly recovered, Navalny mentioned: “In individuals’s minds, in the event you depart the nation, which means you’ve surrendered.”

Outrage, detention and demise

Two days after Navalny’s ultimate return to Russia, the Anti-Corruption Basis (ACF) – the organisation he established in 2011 – revealed its greatest ever investigation. The YouTube video exploring “Putin’s palace” on the Black Beach achieved a unprecedented 100 million views inside ten days. By the beginning of February 2021, polling urged it had been watched by greater than 1 / 4 of all adults in Russia.

Outrage at Navalny’s detention, mixed with this Putin investigation, received individuals on to the streets. On January 23 2021, 160,000 individuals turned out throughout Russia in occasions that didn’t have prior approval from the authorities. Greater than 40% of the members mentioned they have been collaborating in a protest for the primary time.

However the Russian authorities have been decided to additionally make it their final time. Legislation enforcement mounted an superior show of energy, detaining protesters and typically beating them. The variety of members at protests on January 31 and February 2 declined sharply because of this.

Between Navalny’s return to Russia in January 2021 and his demise in February 2024, aged 47, he confronted felony case after felony case, including years and years to his time in jail and growing the severity of his detention. By the point of his demise, he was within the harshest kind of jail within the Russian penitentiary system – a “particular regime” colony – and was often despatched to a punishment cell.

The plain intent was to demoralise Navalny, his crew and supporters – making an instance of him to unfold worry amongst anybody else who may take into account mounting a problem to the Kremlin. However Navalny fought again, as described in his posthumously revealed memoir, Patriot. He made authorized challenges towards his jailers. He went on starvation strike. And he fashioned a union for his fellow prisoners.

He additionally used his court docket appearances to clarify his political opinions, together with following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, declaring: “I’m towards this battle. I take into account it immoral, fratricidal, and felony.”

Navalny’s ultimate public look was through video hyperlink. He was in good spirits, along with his trademark optimism and humour nonetheless on show. Tongue firmly in cheek, he requested the choose for monetary assist:

Your Honour, I’ll ship you my private account quantity as a way to use your big wage as a federal choose to ‘heat up’ my private account, as a result of I’m working out of cash.

Navalny died the next day. In accordance with the jail authorities, he collapsed after a brief stroll and misplaced consciousness. Though the Russian authorities claimed he had died of pure causes, paperwork revealed in September 2024 by The Insider – a Russia-focused, Latvia-based impartial investigative web site – recommend Navalny could have been poisoned.

Whether or not or not Putin straight ordered his demise, Russia’s president bears duty – for main a system that attempted to assassinate Navalny in August 2020, and for permitting his imprisonment following Navalny’s return to Russia in circumstances designed to crush him.

Commenting in March 2024, Putin said that, simply days earlier than Navalny’s demise, he had agreed for his most vocal opponent to be included in a prisoner swap – on situation the opposition determine by no means returned to Russia. “However, sadly,” Putin added, “what occurred, occurred.”

‘Nobody will overlook’

Putin is afraid of Alexei, even after he killed him.

Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s spouse, wrote these phrases on January 10 2025 after studying a curious letter. His mom, Lyudmila Navalnaya, had written to Rosfinmonitoring – a Russian state physique – with a request for her son’s identify to be faraway from their listing of “extremists and terrorists” now he was not alive.

The official response was straight from Kafka. Navalny’s identify couldn’t be eliminated because it had been added following the initiation of a felony case towards him. Regardless that he was useless, Rosfinmonitoring had not been knowledgeable a couple of termination of the case “in accordance with the process established by regulation”, so his identify must stay.

This seems to be yet one more occasion of the Russian state exercising cruelty behind the veil of bureaucratic legality – equivalent to when the jail authorities initially refused to launch Navalny’s physique to his mom after his demise.

“Putin is doing this to scare you,” Yulia continued. “He needs you to be afraid to even point out Alexei, and steadily to overlook his identify. However nobody will overlook.”

As we speak, Navalny’s household and crew proceed his work outdoors of Russia – and are preventing to maintain his identify alive again residence. However the odds are towards them. Polling suggests the share of Russians who say they know nothing about Navalny or his actions roughly doubled to 30% between his return in January 2021 and his demise three years later.

Navalny fought towards an autocratic system – and paid the worth along with his life. Given the very actual fears Russians could have of voicing assist for a person nonetheless labelled an extremist by the Putin regime, it’s not straightforward to evaluate what individuals there actually consider him and his legacy. However we can even by no means understand how common Navalny would have been within the “regular” political system he fought for.

What made Navalny the drive he was?

Navalny didn’t imply for the common-or-garden yellow rubber duck to turn into such a potent image of resistance.

In March 2017, the ACF revealed its newest investigation into elite corruption, this time specializing in then-prime minister (and former president), Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny’s crew members had turn into masters of manufacturing slick movies that enabled their message to achieve a broad viewers. Per week after posting, the movie had racked up over 7 million views on YouTube – a unprecedented quantity at the moment.

The movie included surprising particulars of Medvedev’s alleged avarice, together with yachts and luxurious properties. Within the centre of a big pond in one in all these properties was a duck home, footage of which was captured by the ACF utilizing a drone.

Such luxuries jarred with many individuals’s view of Medvedev as being a bit completely different to Putin and his cronies. As Navalny wrote in his memoir, Medvedev had beforehand appeared “innocent and incongruous”. (On the time, Medvedev’s spokeswoman mentioned it was “pointless” to touch upon the ACF investigation, suggesting the report was a “propaganda assault from an opposition determine and a convict”.)

However individuals have been indignant, and the report triggered mass avenue protests throughout Russia. They carried yellow geese and trainers, a second unintended image from the movie given Medvedev’s penchant for them.

Another excuse why so many individuals got here out to protest on March 26 2017 was the organising work carried out by Navalny’s motion.

The earlier December, Navalny had introduced his intention to run within the 2018 presidential election. As a part of the marketing campaign, he and his crew created a community of regional headquarters to convey collectively supporters and prepare activists throughout Russia. Though the authorities had rejected Navalny’s efforts to register an official political celebration, this regional community functioned in a lot the identical means, gathering like-minded individuals in assist of an electoral candidate. And this infrastructure helped get individuals out on the streets.

The Kremlin noticed this as a transparent risk. In accordance with a December 2020 investigation by Bellingcat, CNN, Der Spiegel and The Insider, the FSB assassination squad implicated within the Novichok poisoning of Navalny had began trailing him in January 2017 – one month after he introduced his run for the presidency.

On the protests towards Medvedev, the authorities’ rising intolerance of Navalny was additionally on show – he was detained, fined and sentenced to fifteen days’ imprisonment.

The Medvedev investigation was removed from the start of Navalny’s story as a thorn within the Kremlin’s facet. However this episode brings collectively the entire parts that made Navalny the drive he was: anti-corruption activism, protest mobilisation, makes an attempt to run as a “regular” politician in a system rigged towards him, and savvy use of social media to lift his profile in all of those domains.

Courting controversy

In Patriot, Navalny writes that he all the time “felt certain a broad coalition was wanted to battle Putin”. But through the years, his makes an attempt to type that coalition led to among the most controversial factors of his political profession.

In a 2007 video, Navalny referred to himself as a “licensed nationalist”, advocating for the deportation of unlawful immigrants, albeit with out utilizing violence and distancing himself from neo-Nazism. Within the video, he says: “We’ve the suitable to be Russians in Russia, and we’ll defend that proper.”

Though alienating some, Navalny was trying to current a extra acceptable face of nationalism, and he hoped to construct a bridge between nationalists and liberals in taking over the Kremlin’s burgeoning authoritarianism.

However the prominence of nationalism in Navalny’s political identification diverse markedly over time, most likely reflecting his shifting estimations of which platform might appeal to the biggest assist inside Russia. By the point of his thwarted run within the 2018 presidential election, nationalist speaking factors have been all however absent from his rhetoric.

Nonetheless, a few of these former feedback and positions proceed to affect how individuals view him. For instance, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Navalny tried to take a realistic stance. Whereas acknowledging Russia’s flouting of worldwide regulation, he mentioned that Crimea was “now a part of the Russian Federation” and would “by no means turn into a part of Ukraine within the foreseeable future”.

Many Ukrainians take this as clear proof that Navalny was a Russian imperialist. Although he later revised his place, saying Crimea must be returned to Ukraine, some noticed this as too little, too late. However others have been keen to look previous the extra controversial elements of his biography, recognising that Navalny represented the best home problem to Putin.

One other key try to construct a broad political coalition was Navalny’s Good Voting initiative. This was a tactical voting challenge during which Navalny’s crew inspired voters to again the person thought best-placed to defeat the ruling United Russia candidate, whatever the challenger’s ideological place.

The challenge wasn’t met with common approval. Some opposition figures and voters baulked at, or flatly refused to contemplate, the thought of voting for individuals whose ideological positions they discovered repugnant – or whom they considered as being “pretend” opposition figures, fully in mattress with the authorities. (This makes clear that Navalny was by no means the chief of the political opposition in Russia; he was, quite, the main determine of a fractious constellation of people and teams.)

However others relished the chance to make rigged elections work of their favour. And there’s proof that Good Voting did typically work, together with within the September 2020 regional and native elections, for which Navalny had been campaigning when he was poisoned with Novichok.

In an astonishing second captured on movie throughout his restoration in Germany, Navalny speaks to an alleged member of the FSB squad despatched to kill him. Pretending to be the aide to a senior FSB official, Navalny finds out that the nerve agent had been positioned in his underpants.

How do Russians really feel about Navalny now?

It’s like a member of the household has died.

That is what one Russian good friend instructed me after listening to of Navalny’s demise a 12 months in the past. Quickly afterwards, the Levada Heart – an impartial Russian polling organisation – performed a nationally consultant survey to gauge the general public’s response to the information.

The ballot discovered that Navalny’s demise was the second-most talked about occasion by Russian those that month, after the seize of the Ukrainian metropolis of Avdiivka by Russian troops. However when requested how they felt about his demise, 69% of respondents mentioned they’d “no explicit emotions” both means – whereas solely 17% mentioned they felt “sympathy” or “pity”.

And that broadly matches with Navalny’s approval rankings in Russia. After his poisoning in 2020, 20% of Russians mentioned they accepted of his actions – however this was all the way down to 11% by February 2024.

In fact, these numbers have to be taken for what they’re: polling in an authoritarian state concerning a determine vilified and imprisoned by the regime, throughout a time of battle and amid draconian restrictions on free speech. To what extent the drop in assist for Navalny was actual, quite than reflecting the elevated worry individuals had in voicing their approval for an anti-regime determine, is tough to say with certainty.

When requested why they preferred Navalny, 31% of those that accepted of his actions mentioned he spoke “the reality”, “truthfully” or “straight”. For many who didn’t approve of his actions, 22% mentioned he was “paid by the west”, “represented” the west’s pursuits, that he was a “international agent”, a “traitor” or a “puppet”.

The Kremlin had lengthy tried to discredit Navalny as a western-backed traitor. After Navalny’s 2020 poisoning, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, mentioned that “consultants from america’ Central Intelligence Company are working with him”. The Russian state claimed that, quite than a patriot exposing official malfeasance with a view to strengthening his nation, Navalny was a CIA stooge intent on destroying Russia.

Peskov supplied no proof to again up this declare – and the official propaganda wasn’t believed by all. Hundreds of Russians defied the authorities by popping out to pay their respects at Navalny’s funeral on March 1 2024. Many, if not all, knew this was a big threat. Police employed video footage to trace down members of the funeral crowd, together with by utilizing facial recognition expertise.

The primary individual to be detained was a Muscovite the police claimed they heard shouting “Glory to the heroes!” – a standard Ukrainian response to the declaration “Glory to Ukraine!”, however this time referencing Navalny. She spent an evening in a police station earlier than being fined for “displaying a banned image”.

Putin all the time prevented mentioning Navalny’s identify in public whereas he was alive – as a substitute referring to him as “this gentleman”, “the character you talked about”, or the “Berlin affected person”. (The one recorded occasion of Putin utilizing Navalny’s identify in public when he was alive was in 2013.)

Nonetheless, having been re-elected president in 2024 and with Navalny useless, Putin lastly broke his long-held apply, saying: “As for Navalny, sure he handed away – that is all the time a tragic occasion.” It was as if the demise of his nemesis diminished the efficiency of his identify – and the problem that Navalny had lengthy offered to Putin.

No person can turn into one other Navalny

Another person will stand up and take my place. I haven’t performed something distinctive or troublesome. Anybody might do what I’ve performed.

So wrote Navalny within the memoir revealed after his demise. However that hasn’t occurred: no Navalny 2.0 has but emerged. And it’s no actual shock. The Kremlin has taken clear steps to make sure no person can turn into one other Navalny inside Russia.

In 2021, the authorities made a transparent choice to destroy Navalny’s organisations inside Russia, together with the ACF and his regional community. With out the organisational infrastructure and authorized skill to operate in Russia, no determine has been in a position to take his place straight.

Extra broadly, the destiny of Navalny and his motion has had a chilling impact on the opposition panorama. So too produce other steps taken by the authorities.

Russia has turn into markedly extra repressive because the begin of its battle on Ukraine. The human rights NGO First Division regarded into the variety of circumstances referring to “treason”, “espionage” and “confidential cooperation with a international state” since Russia launched the present model of its felony code in 1997. Of the greater than 1,000 circumstances, 792 – the overwhelming majority – have been initiated following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Russian regulation enforcement has additionally used nebulous anti-extremism and anti-terrorism laws to crack down on dissenting voices. Three of Navalny’s attorneys have been sentenced in January 2025 for collaborating in an “extremist organisation”, because the ACF was designated by a Moscow court docket in June 2021. The Russian legislature has additionally handed a barrage of laws referring to so-called “international brokers”, to tarnish the work of these the regime regards as foreign-backed “fifth columnists”.

Mass avenue protests are largely a factor of the previous in Russia. Restrictions have been positioned on public gatherings through the COVID pandemic – however these guidelines have been utilized selectively, with opposition people and teams being focused. And alternatives for collective motion have been additional decreased following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Freedom of speech has additionally come beneath assault. Article 29, level 5 of the Russian structure states: “Censorship shall be prohibited.” However in September 2024, Kremlin spokesperson Peskov mentioned: “Within the state of battle that we’re in, restrictions are justified, and censorship is justified.”

Laws handed very quickly after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine made it unlawful to touch upon the Russian army’s actions honestly – and even to name the battle a battle.

YouTube – the platform so central to Navalny’s skill to unfold his message – has been focused. With out banning it outright – maybe afraid of the general public backlash this may trigger – the Russian state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has slowed down web site visitors to the location inside Russia. The consequence has been a transfer of customers to different web sites supporting video content material, together with VKontakte – a Russian social media platform.

Briefly, circumstances in Russia are very completely different now in comparison with when Navalny first emerged. The relative freedom of the 2000s and 2010s gave him the house to problem the corruption and authoritarianism of an evolving system headed by Putin. However this house has shrunk over time, to the purpose the place no room stays for a determine like him inside Russia.

In 2019, Navalny instructed Ivan Zhdanov, who’s now director of the ACF: “We modified the regime, however not in the way in which we needed.” So, did Navalny and his crew push the Kremlin to turn into extra authoritarian – making it not solely illiberal of him but additionally any doable successor?

There could also be some reality on this. And but, the drastic steps taken by the regime following the beginning of the battle on Ukraine recommend there have been different, much more important elements which have laid naked the violent nature of Putin’s private autocracy – and the president’s disdain for dissenters.

Loads for Russians to be indignant about

How can we win the battle when dedushka [grandpa] is a moron?

In June 2023, Evgeny Prigozhin – a long-time affiliate of Putin and head of the non-public army Wagner Group – staged an armed rise up, marching his forces on the Russian capital. This was not a full-blown political motion towards Putin. However the goal of Prigozhin’s invective towards Russia’s army management had turn into more and more blurry, testing the taboo of direct criticism of the president – who is typically referred to, disparagingly, as “grandpa” in Russia.

And Prigozhin paid the worth. In August 2023, he was killed when the non-public jet he was flying in crashed after an explosion on board. Afterwards, Putin referred to Prigozhin as a “proficient individual” who “made severe errors in life”.

Within the west, opposition to the Kremlin is usually related to extra liberal figures like Navalny. But essentially the most consequential home problem to Putin’s rule got here from a really completely different a part of the ideological spectrum – a determine in Prigozhin main a section of Russian society that needed the Kremlin to prosecute its battle on Ukraine much more aggressively.

As we speak, there’s loads for Russians to be indignant about, and Putin is aware of it. He just lately acknowledged an “overheating of the economic system”. This has resulted in excessive inflation, partially resulting from all of the assets being channelled into supporting the battle effort. Such cost-of-living issues weigh extra closely than the battle on the minds of most Russians.

A favorite speaking level of the Kremlin is how Putin imposed order in Russia following the “wild Nineties” – characterised by financial turbulence and symbolised by then-president Boris Yeltsin’s public drunkenness. Many Russians attribute the soundness and rise in residing requirements they skilled within the 2000s with Putin’s rule – and thank him for it by offering assist for his continued management.

The present financial issues are an acute fear for the Kremlin as a result of they jeopardise this fundamental social contract struck with the Russian individuals. In reality, a technique the Kremlin tried to discredit Navalny was by evaluating him with Yeltsin, suggesting he posed the identical threats as a failed reformer. In his memoir, Navalny concedes that “few issues get beneath my pores and skin extra”.

Though initially a fan of Yeltsin, Navalny grew to become an ardent critic. His argument was that Yeltsin and people round him squandered the chance to make Russia a “regular” European nation.

Navalny additionally needed Russians to really feel entitled to extra. Moderately than be content material with their relative residing requirements in contrast with the early post-Soviet interval, he inspired them to think about the extent of wealth residents might take pleasure in based mostly on Russia’s extraordinary assets – however with the rule of regulation, much less corruption, and actual democratic processes.

‘Consider different doable Russias’

When taking a look at types of criticism and dissent in Russia at this time, we have to distinguish between anti-war, anti-government, and anti-Putin actions.

Regardless of the chance of harsh penalties, there are each day types of anti-war resistance, together with arson assaults on army enlistment workplaces. Some are orchestrated from Ukraine, with Russians blackmailed into appearing. However different circumstances are prone to be types of home resistance.

Criticism of the federal government remains to be typically doable, largely as a result of Russia has a “twin govt” system, consisting of a primary minister and presidency. This enables the far more highly effective presidency to deflect blame to the federal government when issues go fallacious.

There are nominal opposition events in Russia – typically known as the “systemic opposition”, as a result of they’re loyal to the Kremlin and subsequently tolerated by the system. Throughout the State Duma, these events usually criticise explicit authorities ministries for obvious failings. However they not often, if ever, now dare criticise Putin straight.

Nothing anyplace near the problem offered by Navalny seems on the horizon in Russia – at both finish of the political spectrum. However the presence of clear common grievances, and the existence of organisations (albeit not Navalny’s) that would channel this anger ought to the Kremlin’s grip loosen, imply we can’t write off all opposition in Russia.

Navalny’s spouse, Yulia, has vowed to proceed her husband’s work. And his crew in exile preserve deal with elite corruption in Russia, now from their base in Vilnius, Lithuania. The ACF’s most up-to-date investigation is on Igor Sechin, CEO of the oil firm Rosneft.

However some have argued this work is not as related because it was. Sam Greene, professor in Russian politics at King’s School London, captured this doubt in a latest Substack put up:

[T]here’s a palpable sense that these types of investigations will not be related to as many individuals as they was, given the whole lot that has transpired because the mid-2010s, once they have been the bread and butter of the Anti-Corruption Basis. Some … have gone so far as to recommend that they’ve turn into successfully meaningless … and thus that Group Navalny ought to transfer on.

Navalny’s crew are understandably irritated by recommendations they’re not as efficient as they as soon as have been. However it’s essential to notice that this criticism has usually been sharpest inside Russia’s liberal opposition. The ACF has been rocked, for instance, by latest accusations from Maxim Katz, one such liberal opposition determine, that the organisation helped “launder the reputations” of two former financial institution house owners. Of their response, posted on YouTube, the ACF referred to Katz’s accusations as “lies” – however this continued squabbling has left some Russians feeling “disillusioned and unrepresented”.

So, what is going to Navalny’s long-term legacy be? Patriot features a revealing part on Mikhail Gorbachev – the final chief of the Soviet Union, whom Navalny describes as “unpopular in Russia, and likewise in our household”. He continues:

Normally, if you inform foreigners this, they’re very shocked, as a result of Gorbachev is regarded as the one that gave Japanese Europe again its freedom and due to whom Germany was reunited. In fact, that’s true … however inside Russia and the USSR he was not significantly preferred.

In the mean time, there’s a comparable break up in perceptions of Navalny. Internationally, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament, and a documentary about him gained an Oscar.

However there are additionally these outdoors of Russia who stay important: “Navalny’s life has introduced no profit to the Ukrainian victory; as a substitute, he has precipitated appreciable hurt,” wrote one Ukrainian educational. “He fuelled the phantasm within the west that democracy in Russia is feasible.”

Inside Russia, in response to Levada Heart polling shortly after his demise, 53% of Russians thought Navalny performed “no particular function” within the historical past of the nation, whereas 19% mentioned he performed a “quite unfavorable” function. Revealingly, when commenting on Navalny’s demise, one man in Moscow instructed RFE/RL’s Russian Service: “I feel that everybody who’s towards Russia is responsible, even when they’re proper.”

However, for a small minority in Russia, Navalny will go down as a messiah-like determine who miraculously cheated demise in 2020, then made the last word sacrifice in his battle of fine and evil with the Kremlin. This view could have been strengthened by Navalny’s growing openness about his Christian religion.

Finally, Navalny’s long-term standing in Russia will depend upon the character of the political system after Putin has gone. Because it appears doubtless that authoritarianism will outlast Putin, a extra beneficial official story about Navalny is unlikely to emerge any time quickly. Nonetheless, how any post-Putin regime tries to make sense of Navalny’s legacy will inform us rather a lot about that regime.

Whereas he was alive, Navalny stood for the freer Russia during which he had emerged as a number one opposition determine – and likewise what he known as the “Lovely Russia of the Future”. Maybe, after his demise, his lasting legacy in Russia stays the flexibility for some to suppose – if solely in non-public – of different doable Russias.

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