Patriot

on august 20, 2020, russian opposition leader alexei navalny boarded a flight from siberia to moscow, riding high on the momentum of a successful campaign. despite years of being banned from running for office, his network had found creative ways to win. their latest investigation into the regime’s excesses had resulted in damning footage of a corrupt official’s private island estate. his team was positioning itself to deliver crushing defeats to regime candidates in upcoming regional elections. but 21 minutes after takeoff, navalny’s body began to betray him.

it began with cold sweats and a creeping sense that his entire system was failing. there was no pain – just a profound wrongness that defied description. after stumbling to the airplane bathroom, navalny knew with absolute clarity: he was dying. the poison was novichok, he learned later; a calling card of russian state assassination. navalny managed to tell a flight attendant he’d been poisoned – before lying down on the floor to die.

eighteen days in a coma gave way to weeks in intensive care at berlin’s charité hospital. he had to relearn basic functions: speaking, writing, walking. yet even as he relearned to walk three meters to the sink, navalny’s political victory was unfolding. his candidates swept elections in several districts, proving that putin’s grip could be loosened.

while navalny would give his life just a few years later, the movement he built would prove harder to silence. in this chapter, we’ll trace navalny’s remarkable journey from rebellious youth to putin’s most formidable enemy – and see how he helped russians imagine a different future for their country.

the first time navalny saw soldiers in white hazmat suits waving radiation detectors, he learned that truth in the soviet union was as scarce as butter.

it was the 1980s – the dying days of the soviet empire. navalny grew up in a military town near obninsk – southwest of moscow. when chornobyl exploded in 1986, navalny saw the authorities’ first instinct was to lie – not just about the disaster itself, but about everything surrounding it. they sent people to plant potatoes in radioactive soil, held may day parades under contaminated skies, and orchestrated elaborate deceptions for foreign journalists. this wasn’t mere incompetence; it was the reflexive response of a system built on the premise that its citizens couldn’t handle truth.

the lives around him were governed by contradictions. people scorned western excess while coveting its products; party officials preached equality while enjoying special access to basic goods; and the state broadcast programs criticizing foreign rock music – that only made it more appealing. a foreign sugar packet from an aeroflot flight could become a treasured possession, while chewing gum from abroad held more cultural currency than a hero’s medal.

when the end of the ussr finally came, it arrived with unexpected comedy. the august 1991 putsch revealed not the iron fist of soviet power but an arthritic trembling. as tanks rolled into moscow, their crews ended up sharing sandwiches with protesters instead of suppressing them. the coup leaders, speaking in fossilized soviet clichés, seemed like characters from a political farce rather than serious contenders for power.

yet the aftermath brought its own tragedies. the ussr’s collapse left millions of russians stranded across newly independent states. the failure to properly address this diaspora created wounds that would fester for decades. these would provide convenient grievances for those who, like putin, would build power on nostalgia – nostalgia for a soviet union they themselves had helped dismantle.

navalny’s early life was shaped by a peculiar mix of discipline and disruption. his education revealed a mind more attuned to literature and history than mathematics, though he managed to maintain solid grades in every subject. he had a reputation as a rebellious classroom joker – constantly making remarks and challenging teachers – an early manifestation of his refusal to accept authority without question.

a defining moment came during adolescence when he confronted a bully who’d been extorting money from him. in a burst of desperate courage, fueled more by fear than bravado, navalny attacked his tormentor. this incident taught him a crucial lesson: sometimes the most courageous actions spring from sheer desperation.

navalny’s university years exposed him to the endemic corruption of 1990s russia’s educational system. bribes weren’t just common but institutionalized, with professors openly accepting payments for grades. this early exposure to systematic corruption would later inform his political activism.

but amid this cynical environment, fate intervened. during a trip to turkey in 1998, navalny spotted yulia abrosimova, a young woman whose joy and openness struck him immediately. in a moment of surprising clarity, he knew he had to marry her. within six months they were living together, and within two years married.

more than just a romantic partner, yulia became a political ally whose convictions sometimes exceeded his own, providing essential support through the tumultuous years of opposition politics that lay ahead.

after completing his law degree in the late 1990s, navalny entered moscow’s rapidly expanding corporate sector – just as russia’s new capitalism was taking shape. he joined a large property development company; one whose headquarters shared space with moscow’s construction department – a cozy arrangement that reflected the intimate relationships between business and government in post–soviet russia.

navalny’s role involved handling contracts for cyprus-based offshore companies. the office environment was a microcosm of the era: company executives pulled up in mercedes s-class vehicles with personal security details, bureaucrats demanded bribes for permits, and colleagues schemed to move money through offshore accounts.

though the position offered financial security and career advancement, this daily exposure to systemic corruption ultimately pushed navalny toward a different path. yet this work had given him an insider’s view of the operations of russia’s new business elite. and the skills he gained – studying complex financial structures and tracking money flows – later became tools in his anti-corruption investigations.

navalny also had a stark realization about russia’s new leader, vladimir putin. in 1999, many russians welcomed putin as a young, sober alternative to the chaotic boris yeltsin. navalny saw a façade. rather than representing genuine change, putin’s appointment was in fact a corrupt bargain: putin would inherit the presidency in exchange for protecting yeltsin’s family from prosecution and preserving their wealth.

this insight drove navalny to make an unusual choice for an ambitious young lawyer – joining the russian united democratic party – known as yabloko – then russia’s only genuine democratic opposition. yabloko was disorganized and sclerotic. but it still represented the clearest platform for opposition to putin’s emerging authoritarian state. the decision marked navalny’s first step away from a comfortable corporate career and toward a life of political resistance.

the years after joining yabloko saw navalny testing different forms of opposition, from organizing street protests to serving as an advisor to a regional governor. finding the party leadership too timid, navalny began searching for more direct ways to challenge the regime. 

by 2008, navalny had developed an innovative approach to fighting corruption. using his financial background, he purchased small amounts of shares in major state companies like gazprom, the state oil company, and vtb bank, giving him legal standing to investigate their operations. this gained him access to internal documents and let him confront corrupt executives face-to-face at annual meetings. he revealed billions in embezzled funds, capturing public attention and establishing his reputation as a fearless activist.

simultaneously, a revolution was taking place online. platforms like livejournal provided navalny with the perfect vehicle to bypass state-controlled media. perhaps most significantly, his team used crowdfunding – soliciting micro-donations from ordinary citizens, rather than the backing of oligarchs. this approach provided financial independence and at the same time demonstrated that russians were willing to support opposition politics openly.

in 2011, the anti-corruption foundation emerged from this digital grassroots movement. the organization maintained an office culture that looked and felt “normal” – professional, transparent, staffed by young russians who could have worked at any modern company. but their mission was revolutionary: to expose the massive corruption at the heart of putin’s system.

the watershed moment came during the 2011 duma elections. navalny publicly branded putin’s party united russia as the “party of crooks and thieves.” the phrase went viral, becoming so ubiquitous that it would auto-complete in search engines whenever someone typed “united russia.” united russia’s vote share plummeted, particularly in moscow where, despite controlling all levers of state power, it managed only 46 percent.

the regime’s response was brazen: widespread ballot stuffing, carousel voting  – where groups of people were bused between polling stations to vote multiple times – and the outright falsification of results. videos of election workers stuffing ballot boxes, and testimonies from thousands of observers, documented the fraud in unprecedented detail.

on december 5, online anger poured into the streets. by december 24, the protests had swelled to over 100,000 people – the largest demonstrations of the putin era. the movement united unlikely allies, from former government ministers to socialites, all demanding free elections.

for his role in the protests, navalny was arrested and served 15 days in detention. but the combination of digital activism and street demonstrations had created a new template for opposition politics in russia. the regime’s vulnerability to criticism had been exposed. in the years ahead, its response proved increasingly brutal.

navalny’s rise to prominence marked a new chapter in russian opposition politics, one that would eventually force the kremlin to abandon its pretense of democratic tolerance.

by 2012, navalny had become threatening enough that the kremlin launched a coordinated campaign against him. it brought four simultaneous criminal cases, targeting not just navalny but his family. the most notorious of these was the yves rocher case, which eventually sent his brother oleg to prison for three and a half years.

nevertheless, the following years became a masterclass in the art of opposition in modern russia. navalny learned to fight not just against the regime, but against invisibility. when the state blocked his blog, navalny turned to video. when they banned navalny from television, he built a youtube empire. each obstacle erected became a stepping stone to something bigger. his investigations into corruption continued to spread, reaching millions of ordinary russians.

navalny’s 2013 moscow mayoral campaign demonstrated the potential of genuine opposition politics in russia. running with minimal resources and no media access, he introduced innovations like “cubes” – mobile information points that brought his message directly to voters. navalny shook hands, took selfies, and spoke directly to voters in a way unfamiliar to russian politics. the result – 27.2 percent of the vote – terrified the kremlin.

navalny’s 2018 presidential campaign push in 2016 represented an even more ambitious effort. he built a nationwide network of 82 campaign offices, conducted extensive regional tours, and pioneered online political communication in russia through his weekly show “navalny at 20:18.” the kremlin’s response escalated accordingly, ranging from physical attacks to administrative obstruction, culminating in his eventual barring from the election.

what distinguished navalny wasn’t just his political courage but his ability to combine traditional activism with modern tools and strategies. he transformed russian opposition politics from a largely elite pursuit into a mass movement, forcing the kremlin to abandon its façade of democratic process in its effort to contain him. his work demonstrated that, despite decades of authoritarian rule, there remained a significant appetite for political change in russia – one that would eventually lead the regime to attempt his assassination through poisoning.

in september of 2020, 18 days after his poisoning with novichok, alexei navalny began to emerge from his coma. the process was nothing like the movies suggest – no sudden awakening to concerned faces and bright hospital lights. instead, navalny’s return to consciousness was a weeks-long fever dream. reality and hallucination blended seamlessly – a kindly japanese professor who never existed, prison walls covered in imaginary rap lyrics, and desperate attempts to escape guards stationed outside his room.

the staff at berlin’s charité hospital repeatedly asked him to say any word at all, but he couldn’t figure out how. when he finally managed speech, they gave him a pencil, but he’d forgotten how to write. through it all, navalny’s wife yulia kept a quiet vigil, marking each day of his intensive care stay with a heart drawn on the whiteboard opposite his bed. she drew 34 of them before navalny could fully distinguish reality from his vivid hallucinations.

on his last day in the hospital, german chancellor angela merkel visited. she warned him not to rush back to russia. but after four months of recovery in germany, the pull of home was irresistible. the poison had failed to kill him, and more importantly, it had failed to kill the movement he’d built. abandoning it by staying abroad was out of the question.

in january 2021, alexei and yulia returned to russia together. alexei was detained at border control and arrested immediately. that marked the beginning of his final years. new charges and sentences accumulated rapidly. first came three and a half years for parole violation. then nine years for “embezzlement,” and finally, in august 2023, 19 years for “extremism.” each verdict pushed him deeper into russia’s labyrinthine prison system; each facility more severe than the last.

throughout this ordeal, navalny developed what he called “prison zen” – a mental framework for survival. the key was accepting the worst possible outcome from the start. he rejected any hope that he’d be released, instead accepting a life behind bars as his baseline scenario.

during one of yulia’s visits, away from the surveillance microphones, alexei whispered that he might never leave prison alive. she nodded calmly and said she’d reached the same conclusion. it was a moment that confirmed the rightness of their partnership – no tears, no false hopes, just clear-eyed acceptance of reality – and determination to continue in spite of it. accept the worst and keep fighting.

even in isolation, navalny continued strategizing ways to challenge the regime, sending messages to supporters and analyzing the system’s vulnerabilities. the prison system aimed to instill hopelessness, but accepting the worst actually brought its own kind of freedom – the freedom to continue fighting without fear of further punishment.

in december 2023, navalny disappeared from his known prison location. for nearly a month, neither family nor lawyers could locate him. he eventually resurfaced in a prison facility beyond the arctic circle in western siberia – where he finally met his end.

on february 16, 2024, the news the russian opposition dreaded finally arrived. the federal penitentiary service announced that alexei navalny had died in his arctic prison colony. his death came after weeks of complaints about malnourishment and mistreatment. according to officials, he had fallen ill after a walk, with attempts at resuscitation failing.

the regime that had failed to silence him through poison had succeeded – if not through assassination – through the slow warfare of imprisonment. it took eight days for authorities to return his body to his mother, a final act of control over a man they could never control in life.

yet navalny’s story transcends his death. he showed russians something many thought impossible: that it was possible to stand up to the regime and maintain dignity in the face of persecution. navalny transformed russian opposition politics, moving it from intellectual circles to shopping centers, from academic discourse to social media.

most importantly, navalny redefined what political courage could look like in modern russia. while many mistook his fearlessness for recklessness, it was perhaps something rarer – a calculated defiance born of clarity. face the worst the regime can do, navalny decided; accept it as inevitable, then act with complete freedom. accept the worst and keep fighting.

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