It takes a brave man or a bloody fool to stand
against the Russian president Vladimir Putin. Most of Putin's critics left
Russia long ago, but Alexei Navalny, who has died suddenly in prison at the age
of 47, returned to Russia in January 2021, after undergoing months of medical
treatment in Germany for Novichok poisoning. The Novichok agent had been
applied to Navalny's underwear when he was staying at an hotel in Tomsk.
On his return to Moscow, he was immediately taken into custody. He would never leave jail again. Considered to be one of Putin's staunchest critics, Navalny was serving a 19-year jail term on charges widely considered politically motivated.
Last year, Navalny was moved to the Polar Wolf Artic penal colony 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Navalny had looked healthy when he appeared by video for a courtroom appeal on Thursday, the day before his death. The prison authorities said Navalny had felt unwell following a walk on Friday and had lost consciousness. Although the cause of Navalny's death has yet to be established, his death is likely to be seen as a political assassination attributable to Vladimir Putin.
In 2015, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was shot dead on a Moscow bridge a stone's throw from the Kremlin. In August 2023, the Wagner boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, was killed in an unexplained plane crash weeks after leading his mercenaries in an armed mutiny.
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