Shaun Walker writes:

For years, Alexei Navalny remained clear on a key message: he was a Russian opposition politician and he was determined to stay in Russia. Exile, he believed, would lead to political irrelevance, and calling on Russians to oppose Vladimir Putin from the safety of the west would mark him as a hypocrite.

Navalny stuck to this belief as the political climate in Russia deteriorated and the space for dissent narrowed ever further, and even after he was poisoned with novichok in 2020, leading to his ill-fated decision to return early the next year.

Russian authorities have been trying various methods to shut Navalny up for more than a decade. Initially, some in the Kremlin thought he could be allowed to remain on the political scene as a release valve for disgruntled urban Russians. A dangerously good performance in the 2013 Moscow mayoral vote put paid to that. Instead, authorities moved to launch various criminal cases against him.

In 2014, Navalny was put under house arrest and his brother, Oleg, was given a three-and-a-half-year jail term, widely seen as a way to put pressure on him. Some suggested he might be of more use to the Russian opposition movement abroad and at liberty rather than in Russia and potentially sent to join his brother in jail. [Continue reading…]