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ALEXEI NAVALNY: RUSSIA'S JAILED VOCIFEROUS PUTIN CRITIC

Published8 October 2021
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Media caption,
Alexei Navalny: what you need to know

Anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny has long been the most prominent face
of Russian opposition to President Vladimir Putin.

The 45-year-old blogger has survived poisoning with a nerve agent and is now
behind bars. Even though he has been unable to challenge the president at the
ballot box, his voice retains its power for many Russians and he remains a
threat to the Kremlin.

He has millions of Russian followers on social media - many in their early 20s
or younger - and his campaign group's anti-corruption videos have reached
millions.


POISONED AND JAILED

Navalny, whose organisations have been banned as "extremist" in Russia, nearly
died in August 2020 when he was attacked with a Novichok nerve agent in Siberia.

But his team had him flown to Berlin and he recovered over a period of months,
returning to Moscow on 17 January and immediate detention.

His supporters staged mass protests across Russia and police responded with
force, detaining thousands for attending the unauthorised rallies.



Although he and his anti-corruption team were banned from standing in
parliamentary elections, they still managed to anger the Kremlin with a "smart
voting" app that encouraged voters to back candidates who had a chance of
defeating Mr Putin's United Russia party.


ANTI-CORRUPTION VIDEO REACHES MILLIONS

Navalny's consistent message is that Mr Putin's party is full of "crooks and
thieves". He has accused the president of "sucking the blood out of Russia"
through a "feudal state" concentrating power in the Kremlin. That patronage
system, he claims, is like tsarist Russia.

He speaks the street language of younger Russians and uses it to powerful effect
on social media. His Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) has made detailed claims
about official corruption.

After Navalny's arrest in January, his team published the "Putin's palace" video
on YouTube which focused on a vast luxury Black Sea palace, allegedly gifted to
Mr Putin by rich associates.

The video has been viewed well over 100 million times. The Kremlin dismissed it
as a "pseudo-investigation" and Mr Putin called it "boring", denying the claims.
Later billionaire businessman Arkady Rotenberg, one of Mr Putin's closest
friends, said it was his own palace.

Image source, YouTube/Alexei Navalny
Image caption,
Mr Navalny's report claims the vast palace includes a casino, an ice rink and a
vineyard

After Navalny was given a jail term in February 2021, the European Court of
Human Rights ruled he should be freed immediately because of the risk to his
life, but Russia rejected the decision.



He went on hunger strike, protesting that authorities at the penal colony in
Vladimir, 100km (60 miles) east of Moscow, were refusing to give him proper
treatment for leg and back problems.

 * Navalny's supporters fear Putin wants him dead

Controversially, Amnesty International revoked his status as a "prisoner of
conscience" in February, before conceding it had been subjected to an
"orchestrated campaign" to "delist" him and then reversing its decision.

At issue were xenophobic comments he had made years before but had not
disavowed. In videos dating back to 2007 he appeared to compare ethnic conflict
to tooth decay and likened immigrants to cockroaches. He has also said the
Crimea peninsula "de facto belongs to Russia", despite international
condemnation of Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian territory.


WHY IS NAVALNY IN JAIL?

On 2 February a Moscow court jailed Navalny for violating the terms of a 2014
suspended sentence for fraud.

The case against him was based on his failure to report regularly to police
during 2020. His legal team said that was absurd, as the authorities knew full
well he was getting emergency treatment in Berlin for the Novichok nerve agent
attack in Siberia. He reminded the court he had been in a coma during part of
that time.

 * Jailing Navalny may mean more problems for Putin
 * Millions watch jailed critic's 'Putin palace' film
 * Kremlin critic Navalny recalls near-death torment

Navalny argued that between January and August 2020, before the poisoning, he
had reported to police twice a month. He dismissed the fraud case as fabricated
in order to silence him.


Image source, EPA
Image caption,
Navalny gestured this heart sign to his wife during his sentencing

The case concerns alleged embezzlement from a Russian subsidiary of French
cosmetics firm Yves Rocher and from a timber firm, Kirovles. His brother Oleg
was jailed for three-and-a-half years and Alexei got the same term, but
suspended.

That 2014 fraud conviction itself was condemned in 2016 by the European Court of
Human Rights, which found that Navalny's rights had been violated, and it
ordered Russia to pay him and Oleg compensation. But later the Russian Supreme
Court upheld the conviction.


SURVIVING 'NOVICHOK' POISONING

Navalny's battle against President Putin, 69, is now intensely personal: he
accuses the president of ordering state agents to poison him - and he repeated
that allegation in court.

"His main gripe with me is that he'll go down in history as a poisoner," Navalny
told the court scornfully. "We had Alexander the Liberator, Yaroslav the Wise,
and we will have Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner."

Underpants became a social media meme in Russia after Navalny carried out a
telephone sting in December on a Russian FSB state security agent, who revealed
that Novichok, a highly toxic Russian chemical weapon, had been smeared on
Navalny's underwear.

Image source, Reuters
Image caption,
Alexei Navalny posed as a security official in the phone call with an FSB agent

In August 2020 Navalny collapsed on a flight over Siberia and was rushed to
hospital in Omsk. That emergency landing saved his life. A German-based charity
persuaded Russian officials to allow him to be airlifted to Berlin for
treatment.

 * Two hours that saved Alexei Navalny's life

In September the German government revealed that tests carried out by the
military found "unequivocal proof of a chemical nerve warfare agent of the
Novichok group". The Kremlin denied any involvement and rejected the Novichok
finding.

The EU then imposed sanctions on six top Russian officials and a Russian
chemical weapons research centre, accusing them of direct involvement in the
poisoning. Russia retaliated with tit-for-tat sanctions.

Novichok was the chemical weapon which nearly killed former Russian spy Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in March 2018. A local
woman died later from contact with Novichok.

Mr Putin admitted that the state was keeping Navalny under surveillance - it was
justified, he alleged, because US spies were helping the blogger.

 * Putin: Russia's action man president

Detective work by the investigative group Bellingcat pointed to long-running
Federal Security Service (FSB) shadowing of Navalny - despite the official
denials. And Bellingcat named agents it suspected of poisoning him.




ALEXEI NAVALNY - THE BASICS

 * Born on 4 June 1976 in Butyn, a village just west of Moscow
 * Grew up in Obninsk, a town 100km (62 miles) south-west of Moscow
 * Graduated in law at Moscow's Friendship of the Peoples University in 1998
 * Spent a student year in the US as a Yale World Fellow in 2010
 * Lives in Moscow with his wife Yulia; they have two children - daughter Daria
   (studying in the US) and young son Zakhar




ANTI-CORRUPTION CAMPAIGN

The next big test is whether Navalny can still organise - from jail - big,
unauthorised street protests against official corruption. The police have
cracked down hard, detaining his wife Yulia and his top FBK assistants.

This video can not be played


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Media caption,
Hundreds of protesters in Moscow were detained by police

For years he has led nationwide protests, but in 2018 he was barred from
challenging Mr Putin at the ballot box, because of his fraud conviction.

Navalny is familiar with the physical risks in Russia, having been attacked
before the Novichok poisoning. And he has been arrested repeatedly.

 * The women fighting for Navalny against corruption

In 2019, he was diagnosed with contact dermatitis whilst in jail, with his
doctor suggesting he might have been exposed to "some toxic agent".

He has also twice been targeted with antiseptic green dye known as zelyonka and
suffered chemical burns to an eye.

His rise as a force in Russian politics began in 2008, when he started blogging
about alleged malpractice and corruption at some of Russia's big
state-controlled corporations.

One of his tactics was to become a minority shareholder in major oil companies,
banks and ministries, and to ask awkward questions about holes in state
finances.

Image source, AFP
Image caption,
Alexei Navalny drew large crowds during his mayoral campaign in 2013

When he was briefly jailed in July 2013 for embezzlement in the city of Kirov,
the five-year sentence was widely seen as political.

He was unexpectedly allowed out of prison to campaign for the 2013 Moscow
mayoral elections, in which he was runner-up with 27% of the vote, behind Putin
ally Sergei Sobyanin.

That was considered a dramatic success as he had no access to state TV, relying
only on the internet and word of mouth.

Navalny told the BBC the best thing Western states could do for justice in
Russia was to crack down on "dirty money".

"I want people involved in corruption and persecution of activists to be barred
from entering these countries, to be denied visas."


MORE ON THIS STORY

 * Who is Alexei Navalny?
   
   3 February 2021
   

 * The women fighting for Navalny against corruption
   
   14 February 2021
   

 * Jailing Navalny may mean more problems for Putin
   
   4 February 2021
   

 * Millions watch jailed critic's 'Putin palace' film
   
   20 January 2021
   

 * Poisoned opposition leader plans return to Russia
   
   13 January 2021
   

 * Russia hits EU with sanctions in Navalny backlash
   
   22 December 2020
   

 * Kremlin critic Navalny recalls near-death torment
   
   7 October 2020
   

 * Vladimir Putin: Russia's action man president
   
   16 April 2021
   

 * Russia country profile
   
   1 March
   


RELATED INTERNET LINKS

 * Navalny blog (in Russian)

 * United Russia (in Russian)

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.


RELATED TOPICS

 * Russia
 * Chemical weapons
 * Alexei Navalny
 * Vladimir Putin





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