Russia Without Navalny

February 16, 2024 5:11 PM

Alexei Navalny is dead at 47, say Russian prison authorities. The crusading pro-democracy activist was a constant thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin, financing documentaries exposing Kremlin corruption and rallying support as a popular opposition leader; a documentary on his own life won an Oscar and global acclaim last year. Long persecuted by the state, he was poisoned by the notorious nerve agent Novichok in 2020 and returned the following year to face imprisonment under an increasingly authoritarian regime. While the collective West condemns the unsubtle murder of a political prisoner, liberal Russians are left without any clear successor -- though Navalny himself even in death endeavored to tell supporters "You're not allowed to give up."
posted by Rhaomi (108 comments total)

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Fuckin Putin & his govt.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:40 PM on February 16 [18 favorites]

Heard more than a couple of people in various places suggesting that Navalny's murder could possibly linked in time with Trump's statements about allowing Russia to run rampant across NATO allies. Between that and the failure of Ukraine funding happening in the US Congress, it's possible that his death at this moment is meant to send a message that Putin sees that the US government is weak and likely to be entirely unmanageable from within and easy victim for external manipulation.
posted by hippybear at 5:48 PM on February 16 [3 favorites]

I should add, I don't want to derail this into a US thread. Just that things are connected.
posted by hippybear at 5:50 PM on February 16 [5 favorites]

"The task of opposition now is education and the truth is that Putin equals war and crisis"

-Boris Nemtsov.

Nemtstov was killed in February 2015.

Alexei Navalny on the murder of Boris Nemtsov

The ‘Snow Revolution’ had three major leaders, Alexey Navalny is its last.
posted by clavdivs at 5:50 PM on February 16 [15 favorites]

Yet more blood on Putin's hands.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:01 PM on February 16 [5 favorites]

It's on us and our governments to fight Putin and his network at home and everywhere in the world.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 6:14 PM on February 16 [4 favorites]

I should add, I don't want to derail this into a US thread. Just that things are connected.

US centric thinking is complicated.
Of the three Snow revolutionaries,two are dead, Sergei Udaltsov is still alive and after being released in 2017 from prison, he supported the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine all the while still criticizing putin. He was arrested four weeks ago and last week added to Russias extremists and terrorist list.
posted by clavdivs at 6:24 PM on February 16 [6 favorites]

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posted by humbug at 6:24 PM on February 16

Truly not surprised that Putin is consolidating power even more right now. There's a weird spiral of escalation coming out of his bubble, including that surprise all hands on deck thing from congress about anti-satellite weapons. These things do seem to all be piling up at once.
posted by hippybear at 6:28 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

Navalny was no angel when it comes to Ukraine. That said, it’s pretty obvious that Putin eliminated him. Putin was saving this ‘liquidation’ for a ‘special occasion’ and that many Russians feel genuine grief. He wants Russians to go in the election fearful.

I am disgusted that a few members of one party are being allowed to disrupt aid to Ukraine.

I am disgusted that no one in that party doesn’t grab the Speaker by the lapels and shakes some sense into the man. I am disgusted that no one calls these people to any sort of account.

Republicans used to oppose Russia. Republicans used to be ok with physical force in the defence of liberty.

As a 71 year old who grew up in the Cold War, I feel like I am in Bizzaro World.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 6:37 PM on February 16 [82 favorites]

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posted by eirias at 6:39 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

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I have been weirdly emotional about this death today; though I’m in the US it feels truly significant on a global scale. What a brave, brave man.
posted by SomethinsWrong at 6:39 PM on February 16 [11 favorites]

Putin just announced a bill to allow aggressive seizure of property today, nominally to suppress criticism of the Russian military. Functionally, this means there's no such thing as private property in Russia anymore; everything belongs to the Tsar.
posted by bonehead at 6:40 PM on February 16 [15 favorites]

and to add to the tragic surrealism of it all, Tucker The Permanently Confused Face With the Furrowed Brow of Concern & Concentration, was thrown into the mix, thinking he scored a victory lap, and Putin has already kicked him to the curb.
posted by tarantula at 6:41 PM on February 16 [5 favorites]

I can see that. another one of Putin's Trifecta of fear. I believe the all hands on deck Congress thing was to preempt the boldness of Putin and perhaps this was a response but I doubt it. Putin fears two things he cannot totally control, descent from the family and or of military leaders and the Russian general strike. I still believe the general strike will be Putin's downfall.With the economy iworking overtime, people are being paid well and told to look the other way. It reminds me of the movie Chernobyl when the local commissar tells the group of frightened men that this will be their time to shine
posted by clavdivs at 6:42 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

When Navalny was said to be missing a few weeks ago, I figured he was dead then and was actually surprised when he turned up, only for this news to arrive now. So, has he been dead for a while and they just needed to concoct a narrative of some sort?
posted by briank at 7:22 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

As a 71 year old who grew up in the Cold War, I feel like I am in Bizzaro World.

I guess that what has remained consistent for the past century is Russia providing an ideological alternative for people who are discontented with the West.

During the Cold War, it was an (at least nominally) left-wing alternative of socialism and atheism.

Now it is a right-wing alternative of fascism and orthodoxy.
posted by clawsoon at 7:22 PM on February 16 [12 favorites]

And there's a certain percentage of the population who still think Russia is Communist, so you have to take that mindset into account.
posted by hippybear at 7:25 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

Navalny, alive, was an ultra-nationalist nutjob, a problem for "Western" types looking for a credible opposition in Putin's Russia.

Navalny, dead, is a martyr, of sorts, for a few.

Easier for the "Western" types searching for an opposition to engage with a dead martyr than a live irredentist. What good does it do Putin and his creatures? Why is this happening? Who benefits?

(It might actually be as simple as a cardiac arrest.)
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 7:27 PM on February 16 [12 favorites]

the brazenness of this must be some kind of message, since navalny surely posed no threat to putin today if he ever did in the past, but it’s not really clear what the message. nobody serious has any doubt that putin regularly murders people who are in his way, so there’s nothing to prove there. maybe there’s no message to it. maybe he was just preoccupied and hadn’t got around to ordering it done
posted by dis_integration at 7:32 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

Mikhail Khodorkovsky retweets: "Meanwhile tonight, at the memorial to Boris Nemtsov - murdered beside the Kremlin in February 2015 - men in hoods scoop up all the flowers & tributes
Police officers stand by & watch
Volunteers have been keeping watch over the shrine for almost 9 yrs, come rain, snow or shine. video included.

"Russians in Moscow are lining up to lay flowers in memory of Alexei Navalny at a memorial to Gulag victims outside the FSB headquarters.

Given the extent to which the Kremlin has suppressed all dissent since invading Ukraine, this is a not insignificant crowd."
posted by clavdivs at 7:32 PM on February 16 [3 favorites]

CNN to re-air Oscar-winning ‘Navalny’ documentary after Putin rival’s death [The Hill]

tl;dr -- Saturday at 9 p.m. EST on, um... well, CNN.
posted by hippybear at 7:34 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

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Such a brave man. What a loss.
posted by anadem at 7:36 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

dis_integration Perhaps Putin, facing the ongoing failure to quickly and easily conquer Ukraine, the economic problems that's causing for his billionaire backers, and the failure of jingoism that's causing for his nationalist base, thought it was necessary to bolster his image as a "strongman"?

A person like Putin can't afford to seem weak in the eyes of his supporters, however they define "strong" and "weak". If he can't give his nationalist base easy victories and his economic supporters spoils of war to feast on, he presumably has to do SOMETHING to hold on to power or else he'll find himself suffering an unexpected heart attack.
posted by sotonohito at 7:43 PM on February 16 [4 favorites]

I'd be curious to know exactly what has been reported within Russia. Across the entire Ukranian war, we've seen that the news sources within the country don't tell the same story that the outside world knows to be real. So what we know here may not be what people inside of Russia know.
posted by hippybear at 7:49 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

During the Cold War, it was an (at least nominally) left-wing alternative of socialism and atheism.

"I want citizenship because I am a communist and a worker,” he wrote in his request for citizenship. “I have lived in a decadent capitalist society where the workers are slaves.”

When his request was denied, Oswald became despondent. “I am shocked!! My dreams!,” he wrote in his what he called his “historic” diary. “My fondes [sic] dreams are shattered …"
posted by clavdivs at 7:57 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

So what we know here may not be what people inside of Russia know.

They know. Hey, check out Pravda: "Alexei Navalny, blogger and opposition activist, dies. Alexei Navalny dies in Polar Wolf colony during walk.
and at the end of the article: "Alexei Navalny is included on the official register of individuals who conduct extremist activities and support extremist and terrorist organizations"
posted by clavdivs at 8:08 PM on February 16 [2 favorites]

The Death of Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Most Formidable Opponent by Masha Gessen:

Alexey Navalny spent at least a decade standing up to the Kremlin when it seemed impossible. He was jailed and released. He was poisoned, and survived. He was warned to stay away from Russia and didn’t. He was arrested in front of dozens of cameras, with millions of people watching. In prison, he was defiant and consistently funny. For three years, his jailers put him in solitary confinement, cut off his access to and arrested his lawyers, piled on sentence after sentence, sent him all the way across the world’s largest country to serve out his time in the Arctic, and still, when he appeared on video in court, he laughed at his jailers. Year after year, he faced down the might of one of the world’s cruellest states and the vengeance of one of the world’s cruellest men. His promise was that he would outlive them and lead what he called the Beautiful Russia of the Future. On Friday, they killed him. He was forty-seven years old.

posted by gwint at 8:10 PM on February 16 [28 favorites]

Sergey Radchenko with a pessimistic take in the Spectator: Hope for Russia has died with Navalny
posted by Kabanos at 8:40 PM on February 16 [1 favorite]

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posted by marlys at 8:52 PM on February 16

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posted by wowenthusiast at 9:05 PM on February 16

So, has he been dead for a while and they just needed to concoct a narrative of some sort?

His mum was allowed to visit him on February 12, apparently he was healthy and cheeful. He was in communication with his lawyers on the 14th (I believe that's how he was sending Telegram messages and he published a Valentine for his wife). Both of these make it even more obvious that this was on purpose.

I've seen mentions that there were attempts to get him included in prisoner exchanges. This may have contributed to the timing.

In weird things, if not for Navalny LiveJournal may have remained a social media force in the world. He got his start from his LJ blog and a Russian company bought out LJ to bring it under the Russian legal regime.

Brave man, occasionally misguided, but so very brave.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:01 AM on February 17 [15 favorites]

Here in Finland people were in shock yesterday over the news. It doesn't really seem to matter what they thought of him the day before, but once the reports filtered out it was what everyone I knew was talking about. And I'm in shock.

I mean, I guess I'm a kind of fatalist, not that I believe in fate, but in that I'm never surprised when someone who does a dangerous thing pays for it with his life. But it shouldn't be dangerous to protest the state. It shouldn't be normal to be killed by the state. It's normal to be angry and sad about that. And I am.
posted by Kattullus at 1:19 AM on February 17 [28 favorites]

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posted by crocomancer at 1:22 AM on February 17

Makes me even more worried for Garry Kasparov. There'd be international outrage, for sure, maybe even inside Russia, but would Putin care?

In response to Tucker Carlson gushing about the low price of groceries in Moscow and Navalny's murder, yesterday he tweeted, "Is Tucker still in Moscow? He will be amazed by the low price of human life in Putin's Russia."
posted by clawsoon at 2:50 AM on February 17 [19 favorites]

Someone I follow on social media linked today to the speech that Navalny's daughter Daria gave on his behalf when he was awarded the 2021 Sakharov Prize, two months before Putin invaded (the rest of) Ukraine. It's well worth reading.
posted by rory at 4:57 AM on February 17 [2 favorites]

Is anybody truly shocked by this? The minute he made the decision to step foot back in Russia, it was obvious that this was the only way things were going to end.

I'm not saying he wasn't committed to his cause, but how much more effective could he have been leading the opposition against Putin from somewhere relatively safe (I won't say truly safe because we know Russian agents can get to people anywhere)? Sure he's a martyr now, but how is that martyrdom going to be kept alive in Russia?

Now, all of his obligations have been dumped on his wife's shoulders. So now she now only has to deal with all of that, she has to help his grieving children cope with the unnecessary loss of their father--something that will affect them for the rest of their lives.

What good did he accomplish by returning to Russia? What good is his death going to do?

Politicians from western countries may be quick to spout condemnations of Russia, but they won't change anything and neither will Navalny's death.
posted by sardonyx at 5:38 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]

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posted by ellieBOA at 6:32 AM on February 17

I admire Navalny's bravery in going back to Russia, knowing he'd be imprisoned and probably killed. Commenting directly on that risk. He wanted to devote his life to Russian politics and he felt he had to be in Russia to do that. I admire that courage.

I'm a little curious about the timing of killing him now, just a few weeks before the sham election in Russia, and just after Boris Nadezhdin was banned from the election. I suppose if nothing else it's a demonstration of Putin's absolute authoritarian control. His own version of "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters".

A small update today

"It's obvious that they are lying and doing everything they can to avoid handing over the body," [Navalny's mother] wrote on X, formerly Twitter, adding that his team "demand that Alexei Navalny's body be handed over to his family immediately." ...

Arrests continued Saturday after more than 100 people were detained in various Russian cities Friday when they came to lay flowers in memory of Navalny at memorials to the victims of Soviet-era purges, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia.

posted by Nelson at 7:38 AM on February 17 [8 favorites]

And there's a certain percentage of the population who still think Russia is Communist, so you have to take that mindset into account.

Or something of the sort. I recall a photo of a circa-2010 anti-Obama protester holding a sign declaring that Obama’s government had “more czars than the USSR!”

Sure, yeah, I can see that.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:04 AM on February 17 [2 favorites]

The only surprise here is that Navalny lived as long as he did. Putin is just another dictator following the dictator handbook, but he's taking his time doing it. I wouldn't be surprised if the pace picks up now.
posted by tommasz at 8:12 AM on February 17

Makes me even more worried for Garry Kasparov.

Is Kasparov in Russia? I might be wrong, but I thought he lived in St. Louis now?
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 8:46 AM on February 17

I'm a little curious about the timing of killing him now, just a few weeks before the sham election in Russia, and just after Boris Nadezhdin was banned from the election.

I don't follow enough Russian media (state or social) enough to know if it's the case, but the killing happens to be at the same time that Russia managed to take over Avdiivka which would be a classic 'drown out the unpopular news with something exciting' method.
posted by UN at 10:45 AM on February 17 [1 favorite]

I thought he lived in St. Louis now?

If I understand the original commenter's concern, it's that given Putin's past record of extraterritorial assassinations, this intraterritorial killing may be a bad sign for dissidents abroad as well.
posted by Not A Thing at 11:33 AM on February 17 [2 favorites]

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For folk in the UK, the Navalny documentary is available on iPlayer.
posted by amcewen at 12:50 PM on February 17

"occasionally misguided" like referring to Muslims and Chechnyans as "cockroaches" and saying proudly that he was a "certified nationalist".

Putin is a bad guy. So was Navalny.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:00 PM on February 17 [6 favorites]

Thread packed with a lot of information, thanks for sharing. Many ask a good question about timing and such and quite a few of us have put links to power grabs people being arrested news organizations being taken over within a week or so. Navalny was no saint perhaps he was a pro>duct of his times and what have I read, tried to correct these character flaws.

to stand up against Putin, to leave, to be poisoned, then to come back is the epitome of courage and fortitude and he will be missed. I remember when Nemstov was killed and that was the breaking point for me when it came to Putin and how evil he is the man was like Bobby Kennedy and they shot him right outside. I was going to use Kirov, a sorta hero of mine for comparison but no, it's not the same.

A flippant comment to bring up one or two bad points about a person, even though they're trying to correct , and then make a blanket statement that they're horrible or bad, to me it shows a lack of understanding of the culture, the politics, and the precarious situation that the dissident Russian faces every single day. I know as I have done it before, I won't speak for the rest of the 'Westworld' but here in the United States, I can think of very few people have gone through what he has other than maybe folks from the civil Rights movement.
posted by clavdivs at 1:52 PM on February 17 [5 favorites]

With Prison Certain and Death Likely, Why Did Navalny Return?

“I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs,” Mr. Navalny wrote in a Jan. 17 Facebook post to mark the third anniversary of his return and arrest in 2021. “I cannot betray either the first or the second. If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them. And if necessary, make some sacrifices.”

That was the direct answer, but for many Russians, both those who knew him and those who did not, the issue was more complex. Some of them considered it almost a classical Greek tragedy: The hero, knowing that he is doomed, returns home anyway because, well, if he didn’t, he would not be the hero.

posted by Nelson at 1:55 PM on February 17 [4 favorites]

I'd encourage everyone to be skeptical of unsourced Internet comments smearing Navalny's reputation.

I would love to see a well-sourced and contextualized analysis of Navalny's political positions. The article I just linked above has one paragraph:

Some people were wary of Mr. Navalny. He began his political career in the nationalist camp and made some offensive comments about immigrants. Later, he characterized it as a temporary step needed to start building the opposition from someplace, because the nationalists were the only group then willing to take to the streets.

Wikipedia also has a summary of Navalny's positions but again, it seems important to read a bit deeper to assess the sourcing for that article. Wikipedia these days is usually well sourced and the Navalny article seems to be particularly carefully edited.
posted by Nelson at 2:00 PM on February 17 [7 favorites]

US Politics: Trump's admiration for Putin will not lag; he keeps showing us how much he craves that power.
posted by theora55 at 2:04 PM on February 17

he keeps showing us how much he craves that power

That's pretty much the summation of things on the Trump end. Trump has star-eyes toward Putin even while Putin views Trump as a useful idiot to destroy American democracy.

It's rough when the consequences of your crush carries such enormous weight.
posted by hippybear at 2:06 PM on February 17 [2 favorites]

It's not, AFAIK, at all disputed that Navalny referred to immigrants as (among other things) "cockroaches," or that he refused subsequently to disavow those comments. Amnesty in fact temporarily removed his designation as a "prisoner of conscience" over these remarks. Amnesty later restored that designation in an oddly-worded statement that "recognise[d] that an individual’s opinions and behaviour may evolve over time" but provided no evidence that Navalny had engaged in any such evolution.

The Putin regime's treatment of him was absolutely unjustifiable, but I don't think there's any need to try to make Navalny into some sort of hero of liberalism. He was who he was.
posted by Not A Thing at 2:21 PM on February 17 [7 favorites]

And who he was, for good or ill, was the only national face of resistance to Putin in all of Russia.

I see a lot of articles saying there is nobody to take his place. That is not good.
posted by hippybear at 2:25 PM on February 17 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile: U.S. Fears Russia Might Put a Nuclear Weapon in Space

ffs
posted by gwint at 2:29 PM on February 17

I don't even understand that nuke is space thing.

There is zero need for this, and it feels like Russia trolling our intelligence agencies.

Just a simple explosive that actually explodes any satellite will create so much orbital debris chaos that the chances are a lot of other satellites will be damaged and the cascade effect may seal in access from space for generations.
posted by hippybear at 2:38 PM on February 17

adrienneleigh: Putin is a bad guy. So was Navalny.

Navalny said a number of bad things. Putin is responsible for such a great number of deaths that it's in the realm of statistics.

There is no equivalence.
posted by Kattullus at 2:45 PM on February 17 [25 favorites]

Just a simple explosive that actually explodes any satellite will create

A good question, I think the most relevant coming from an analytical viewpoint. the Soviet Union is the only country that ever acknowledged to have a weapon in space, aboard Almaz with a 23mm Rikhter, essentially a really big paper bag revolver. paperbag revolver is my favorite band name. I would have put on a variation of the Lahti L-39 that superb Finnish anti-tank gun that knocked out many Nazi vehicles. why nuclear weapons well you can't shoot them down in flight and you can't shoot them in orbit. and if they did launch it I guess our super secret robotic suborbital space crafts could always nudge up against it put on a grapple and haul out in the space on live TV essentially making the first battle in space a showdown between machines. I think the deciding factor is if a weapon of this kind was launched into orbit nobody and I mean nobody would want that. imagine two and a half billion people cheering on two liittle machines. or even better China somehow reeling that baby in saying we got you back and hurling that thing towards the sun. The conundrum humdrum is like a slight variation of the Oppenheimer moment combined with the Truman doctrine.
posted by clavdivs at 4:58 PM on February 17 [1 favorite]

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posted by mcbeth at 5:34 PM on February 17

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posted by honey badger at 6:46 PM on February 17

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posted by brambleboy at 9:45 PM on February 17

I recommend the documentary Navalny. I've been paying attention to any updates about Alexei Navalny since I saw it, and hoping against hope that he would survive prison and go on to help Russia. This is terrible news on both a personal and a political level. His poor wife and kids. And what can the Russian people look to now for any hope of ousting Putin?

But... while that documentary did touch on Navalny's anti-immigration, nationalist leanings, it never mentioned that he called immigrants cockroaches (!!!!), so it seems to have been something of a whitewash.
posted by orange swan at 9:59 PM on February 17

Joe Biden (along with every other American president) is also "responsible for such a great number of deaths that it's in the realm of statistics". And while i certainly think that makes them bad guys, many people on MeFi do not, so clearly whatever makes someone a "bad guy" must be more than just that!
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:40 PM on February 17 [2 favorites]

To be perfectly clear: the only difference between fascists who have power (like Putin) and fascists who don't have power (like Navalny) is the power, not the fascism.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:46 PM on February 17 [2 favorites]

Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946), on the importance of choosing the lesser evil:

There is no escape from the evil of power, regardless of what one does. Whenever we act with reference to our fellow men, we must sin, and we must still sin when we refuse to act; for the refusal to be involved in the evil of action carries with it the breach of the obligation to do one’s duty. No ivory tower is remote enough to offer protection against the guilt in which the actor and the bystander, the oppressor and the oppressed, the murderer and his victim are inextricably enmeshed. Political ethics is indeed the ethics of doing evil. While it condemns politics as the domain of evil par excellence, it must reconcile itself to the enduring presence of evil in all political action. Its last resort, then, is the endeavor to choose, since evil there must be, among several possible actions the one that is least evil.

It is indeed trivial, in the face of so tragic a choice, to invoke justice against expediency and to condemn whatever political action is chosen because of its lack of justice. Such an attitude is but another example of the superficiality of a civilization which, blind to the tragic complexities of human existence, contents itself with an unreal and hypocritical solution of the problem of political ethics. In fact, the invocation of justice pure and simple against a political action makes of justice a mockery; for, since all political actions needs must fall short of justice, the argument against one political action holds true for all. By avoiding a political action because it is unjust, the perfectionist does nothing but exchange blindly one injustice for another which might even be worse than the former. He shrinks from the lesser evil because he does not want to do evil at all. Yet his personal abstention from evil, which is actually a subtle form of egotism with a good conscience, does not at all affect the existence of evil in the world but only destroys the faculty of discriminating between different evils. ‘Man,’ in the words of Pascal, ‘is neither angel nor beast and his misery is that he who would act the angel acts the brute.’ Here again it is only the awareness of the tragic presence of evil in all political action which at least enables man to choose the lesser evil and to be as good as he can be in an evil world.

posted by russilwvong at 12:16 AM on February 18 [3 favorites]

Lol just because some wanker opposes “duty” to refusing to do evil doesn’t make it true.
posted by dame at 2:11 AM on February 18 [2 favorites]

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posted by filtergik at 3:40 AM on February 18

I'm not a fan of Navalny and am not knowledgeable about politics. But I just wonder why Russian people have never organized protests like the 2013 Euromaidan protests or whatever happened in 2019. There's this constant internet discourse from them about how they don't like the government, and now in places where they have immigrated to, they are laying roses on makeshift shrines to this guy. But when it comes to taking action, its crickets from them.
posted by Didnt_do_enough at 6:13 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]

"And who he was, for good or ill, was the only national face of resistance to Putin in all of Russia."

As an addendum to previous comment from me, I just wonder why this is so.... Russian people seem to be waiting for something to fall from the heavens to save them while being unwilling to make any move to save themselves.
posted by Didnt_do_enough at 6:16 AM on February 18

Honestly a lot of it is negative selection. Over the last half of a millennium, people who tried to criticise successive governments and dictators, whether crowned or not, ended up like Navalny. The nonconformist streak in Russian society was turned deeply inward in reaction - they'll take a lot of risks in their private lives, but generations of parents telling their children not to trifle with the state leaves a mark. Russians I've known just plain don't have hopes for any kind of democracy or popular influence on power, they've lost whatever hope they briefly had after the USSR fell. They retreat into those private lives, they leave if they can, or they practice what's called internal emigration - they try to live as well as possible without disturbing the system because disturbing the system means you get squashed.

I still maintain that's one of the main reasons Putin hates Ukraine so much - because if he thinks those are "mini Russians", then those are near-Russians who did win democracy. AKA a mortal threat to him by just existing and being prosperous and giving hope.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 6:58 AM on February 18 [10 favorites]

As an addendum to previous comment from me, I just wonder why this is so.... Russian people seem to be waiting for something to fall from the heavens to save them while being unwilling to make any move to save themselves.

'cause anybody who has tried to make those moves has gotten killed? That's how strongman regimes keep themselves in power. It's a pretty common and successful (for the strongman, at least) political pattern throughout history.
posted by clawsoon at 9:08 AM on February 18 [10 favorites]

There's a reputation that Russians have generally given up on changing the regime; and that it comes out of a certain hopelessness in the face of such a brutal state.

Which is, surely, often the case.

And yet... I have Russian acquaintances who live abroad who traveled back to Russia to vote for Navalny, as a protest vote. To me, what's striking is not that there's people who still want change — what's striking is that people still have some kind of belief in institutions; as if someone in the mafia state gives even the tiniest shit about someone's mark on a piece of paper.

In the same way, impressive are the group videos to Vladimir Vladimorovich Putin begging him to supply heating in their homes; bring their husbands home from front, etc.

It's some kind of strange naivety that seems to span the political classes.

When Navalny left Germany to go back to Russia, it was a suicide mission — or maybe, a pointless personal sacrifice?

To bring about change, you need more than a death wish.

At least Yevgeny Prigozhin brought his own goddamned army on his return. And even he decided he'll fly around Russia after his coup attempt, running around doing errands here and there before things went down for him.

No wonder nothing changes. Russia isn't full of cynics — it's full of the naive.
posted by UN at 9:56 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I just wonder why this is so.... Russian people seem to be waiting for something to fall from the heavens to save them

You're making the mistake of thinking most/all Russians see Putin as someone to be saved from. There are a LOT of Russians who are for Putin like the MAGA crowd is for Trump: all in and convinced he's their savior from the forces of evil.

Obviously getting straight answers on opinion polls is somewhere between difficult and impossible, so the full extent of Putin's support is difficult to ascertain, but he does clearly have a fairly high level of popularity. When you have a dictator who is obviously holding onto power purely via military force then it's reasonable to start looking at the possibility of popular uprisings and people hoping for someone to get rid of the dictator. But that's not the case in Russia right now. There are many people who do want Putin gone, but it's not an overwhelming majority and may not actually be a majority at all.
posted by sotonohito at 12:14 PM on February 18 [6 favorites]

Ukraine-Russia war: British-Russian dissident ‘disappears’ from Siberia prison
30 January 2024

'St. Petersburg artist Aleksandra Skochilenko was sentenced in November to seven years in prison for an anti-war protest. dec. 2023


Mystery as Top Putin Propagandist Found Dead After Suspected 'Poisoning'
Published Jan 08, 2024
posted by clavdivs at 1:01 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

I have a hard time believing that Russians are any more naive than others. I don't want to indulge in both-sides-ism, but we should look at things from their perspective. Westerners talk about how they are democracies as opposed to dictatorships. But there is enough gerrymandering and entrenched privilege in the West that you can plausibly argue that there are no true democracies in the West. Putin has been banging this drum for a while now. Westerners laugh derisively at the Russian legal system because Russian law is so malleable. Many of those same Westerners turn around and tear their hair out at the prospect of the US Supreme Court's treatment of Trump. My favourite vloggers on the Ukrainian front line report each day how Russians advance a little, but at the cost astounding casualties. The Russians said the same thing about the Ukrainians during this fall's offensive. Incidentally, the Nazis reported the same during the last 2 years of the Eastern Front. Each side thinks the other is fake, or at least faker than their own. If Westerners can be comfortable in their flawed democracies, perhaps Russians can be comfortable in their flawed autocracies. It's just that most people on this site wouldn't feel comfortable in a place where political disappearances are commonplace and tolerated.
posted by SnowRottie at 1:59 PM on February 18 [2 favorites]

> russilwvong
>> Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946)

Dang, that is some industrial strength rationalization for doing any kind of fucked up shit. Chapeau!
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 3:11 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

Claudius, man, is that a constructive comment or a joke? 'Cause we're all trying to be depressed the Russian version of the end of history, I think.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 4:46 PM on February 18

the depression of the trying Russian end of History. do I got that right?

or the end of history is a trying depression to the Russian version.

or the Russian version of the end of History is pretty depressing so let's try.

weak democracies. weak autocracies.
oh look, there's a pheasant.

true democracies never work. that's pretty much common knowledge. true autocracies never last that too is common knowledge.

Hans Morgenthau, Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946), on the importance of choosing the lesser evil:

a very good read I recommend it.

PULL!
posted by clavdivs at 9:29 PM on February 18 [1 favorite]

There's no such thing as a perfect democracy; but all autocracies are flawless. If you own it, you own it.

The law in an autocracy isn't the law on the books — it's rule by autocrat. What he says, is.

The fatal flaw is thinking that we're talking about a flawed system — hey the 'West' is flawed too. But the system Navalny was working on is not flawed. It's a perfectly functional autocratic mafia state.

We often hear 'The early 1990s we're a hard time and someone had to clean that up'. But the early 90's were the end of history, it hasn't changed since.
posted by UN at 12:29 AM on February 19 [4 favorites]

.
posted by Gelatin at 4:38 AM on February 19

The writer Mark Galeotti uploaded "a possibly-rambling response to the shocking news" quickly on YouTube and it was also the subject of his regular podcast In Moscow's Shadows.
posted by Grangousier at 6:32 AM on February 19

Meanwhile, back on the topic of the post: ‘We know exactly why Putin killed Alexey three days ago’ Yulia Navalnaya announces she will continue her husband’s work. An English language summary from Meduza of a video by Navalny's widow.

“We know exactly why Putin killed Alexey three days ago,” Yulia said. “We’ll tell you about it soon.”

Navalnaya vowed that she and her husband’s associates will find out “exactly who committed this crime and how” — and will reveal the perpetrators’ names and faces.

That seems impossible but in the past Bellingcat has been able to do amazing intelligence work rooting out Navalny's various tormenters, including Putin's agents who poisoned him in 2020.
posted by Nelson at 11:06 AM on February 19 [3 favorites]

More than 400 detained in Russia as country mourns the death of Alexey Navalny

Trump uses brief comment on Navalny's death to claim his own political persecution
He said Navalny's death makes him aware of "what's happening in our country."

'After Navalny’s death, the West must get tougher on Putin'
posted by clavdivs at 4:11 PM on February 19

Mod note: A few from earlier deleted. Please avoid turning this into a discussion about US governmental system, etc., or Trump talk. If you are bringing up US-centric topics here, please be sure they are directly relevant to the post. We do tend to have latitude for some conversational straying in threads, but the problem with US discussion or concerns taking over threads focused on other countries becomes overwhelming, and folks have asked that we not do this. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:33 PM on February 19 [3 favorites]

X [Twitter] briefly suspends account of Alexei Navalny's widow.
posted by Nelson at 7:45 AM on February 20

WaPo: Man found dead in an apparent assassination in Spain was a Russian defector, Ukraine says: "Maksym Kuzminov flew a Russian military helicopter into Ukraine to defect with great fanfare last year. Pro-government Russians bloggers have celebrated the killing."
posted by gwint at 9:41 AM on February 20

Man found dead in an apparent assassination in Spain was a Russian defector, Ukraine say

Watch the response. Western politicians symbolically value the lives of foreign politicians far more than they value the lives of non-politicians assassinated on their own soil.
posted by srboisvert at 2:22 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I have a hard time believing that Russians are any more naive than others. I don't want to indulge in both-sides-ism, but we should look at things from their perspective. Westerners talk about how they are democracies as opposed to dictatorships. But there is enough gerrymandering and entrenched privilege in the West that you can plausibly argue that there are no true democracies in the West. Putin has been banging this drum for a while now. Westerners laugh derisively at the Russian legal system because Russian law is so malleable. Many of those same Westerners turn around and tear their hair out at the prospect of the US Supreme Court's treatment of Trump. My favourite vloggers on the Ukrainian front line report each day how Russians advance a little, but at the cost astounding casualties. The Russians said the same thing about the Ukrainians during this fall's offensive. Incidentally, the Nazis reported the same during the last 2 years of the Eastern Front. Each side thinks the other is fake, or at least faker than their own. If Westerners can be comfortable in their flawed democracies, perhaps Russians can be comfortable in their flawed autocracies. It's just that most people on this site wouldn't feel comfortable in a place where political disappearances are commonplace and tolerated.

You didn't want to both-sider so instead you tri-sidered by adding in Nazis. I'm quite impressed by what you've reluctantly achieved. It's kind of Greenwaldian.
posted by srboisvert at 2:34 PM on February 20 [8 favorites]

Navalny’s ‘insect control’ PSA.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 8:34 AM on February 21

'The Evolution of Alexey Navalny’s Nationalism'
posted by clavdivs at 12:47 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Gessen describes the video above as "a forty-second argument for gun rights.” It's clearly something other than that, making the rest of the claims in their article suspect.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 4:47 PM on February 21

"Some well-respected journalists have written nuanced analyses of Navalny’s remarks that help us to understand his rise in Russian politics. It’s true that the videos I’ve cited above are old — but he’s been strikingly consistent in his refusal to disavow them. (He did take back one comment he made back at the time of the Russo-Georgian war in 2008 when he described Georgians using a racist epithet...

....A person’s past mistakes or ignorance should never permanently define them. But the stubborn refusal to address them in a meaningful way causes problems of its own. At some point, Navalny has to decide if he wants to set a better example or prefers to follow the path of those Russian liberal elites who ignore racism in their own country....If Navalny and his supporters would look past the Kremlin trolls and genuinely consider why others find his stance on race unclear, they’d surely get more new voices on their side to help them fight Kremlin disinformation. I’d be happy to be one of them. Calls for Navalny to settle once and for all his position on race aren’t designed to distract from his anti-corruption efforts. Instead, they are designed to push him into being a better leader."
posted by clavdivs at 5:44 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Alexei Navalny: Putin critic's mother says she has been shown his body

"Looking into my eyes, they say that if I do not agree to a secret funeral, they will do something with my son's body."

She said she was told by investigators: "Time is not on your side, the corpse is decomposing."

posted by Nelson at 10:29 AM on February 22

I mean, i agree that it's a bad thing, geopolitically and especially wrt Ukraine, that Navalny got murked. At the very least, he was more isolationist than Putin, and probably would've wound down the war. But it's possible to make that point without eulogizing a fucking fascist as some kind of Brave Noble Hero.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:45 PM on February 22 [1 favorite]

Biden meets with Navalny family in California, pledges sanctions against Putin
posted by clavdivs at 8:01 PM on February 22

I really wonder what sort of sanctions this murder warrants that invading Ukraine didn't.
posted by Mitheral at 7:34 AM on February 23 [5 favorites]

from my understanding,it was a twofer, biden hadsanctions lined out, took the opportunity to announce early
posted by clavdivs at 2:00 PM on February 23

Aleksei Navalny’s Body Was Returned to His Mother, Allies Say

The question now is how Mr. Navalny’s funeral will take shape. The dispute over custody of his body appears to reflect the Kremlin’s fears about a public funeral in Moscow turning into a focal point for protest. ...

In trying to build momentum for a public funeral, the Navalny team appears to be following the direction of their dead leader, who had urged his supporters to keep fighting if he were ever killed. In a widely circulated clip from an interview for the 2022 “Navalny” documentary, Mr. Navalny says that if he is killed, “you are not allowed to give up.”

posted by Nelson at 11:14 AM on February 24

Russia’s Sber confirms list of over 250 books removed from online marketplace due to ‘LGBT propaganda’ law, including works by Dostoevsky and Stephen King.

That Putin's regime has reached the point where they're banning a book by Dostoevsky is something fucking else. I honestly thought I couldn't be surprised anymore.
posted by Kattullus at 4:27 AM on February 25 [1 favorite]

Navalny was close to being freed in prisoner swap between Russia and West, ally says

Putin killed Navalny because negotiations for his release in prisoner swap were nearing completion, Navalny associate Maria Pevchikh says

Speaking on YouTube, Pevchikh said talks about exchanging Navalny and two unnamed U.S. nationals for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB security service hit man in jail in Germany, were in their final stages at the time of his death.

(Vadim Krasikov is the Russian agent who murdered someone in Berlin in 2019 in a highly visible assassination.)
posted by Nelson at 8:18 AM on February 26 [2 favorites]

Navalny Was Part of Discussions on a Prisoner Exchange. The previous two stories I linked were just publishing Pevchikh's claim. The NYTimes has an unnamed source saying more.

A Western official familiar with the negotiations said “early discussions” on the possibility of freeing Mr. Navalny through such a swap had been underway when Russian authorities reported him dead on Feb. 16. But the official pushed back on the Navalny team’s portrayal of the talks as having been in their final stages. ...

The Western official said that the discussions had involved swapping Mr. Navalny, Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive and former Marine, in exchange for Mr. Krasikov.

But an agreement had not appeared imminent, and it was unclear how inclined Russia and Germany were to make such a trade.

posted by Nelson at 3:10 PM on February 26

Russia's Online Campaign to Destroy Yulia Navalnaya>

Social media accounts, Kremlin-backed websites, and Telegram channels are all working in coordination to post false allegations about Alexei Navalny’s widow. ...

The main focus of the campaign is designed to make Navalnaya appear disloyal to her husband by claiming she is having multiple affairs with prominent businessmen and journalists.

posted by Nelson at 7:19 AM on February 27

5 Convicts Familiar With Navalny’s Prison Confirm Hellish Conditions
posted by Nelson at 10:50 AM on March 1

Thousands Turn Out for Navalny’s Funeral in Moscow

The service took place under tight monitoring from the Russian authorities, who have arrested hundreds of mourners at memorial sites since Mr. Navalny died. The police presence was heavy around the church where funeral services began shortly after 2 p.m. local time, but there were no reports of widespread arrests as of the early afternoon. ...

A photograph taken inside the church and shown on Mr. Navalny’s YouTube channel showed him in an open coffin, lying in repose with red and white flowers over his body.

Video: Crowds defiant as they honour political figure in Moscow
posted by Nelson at 10:53 AM on March 1 [2 favorites]

Makes me even more worried for Garry Kasparov. There'd be international outrage, for sure, maybe even inside Russia, but would Putin care?

Hey guess what

Garry Kasparov added to Russia’s list of ‘terrorists and extremists’
posted by clawsoon at 10:43 AM on March 6 [2 favorites]

Russians Flock to Navalny’s Grave as They Grapple With His Legacy

“I didn’t think that he would be killed in prison,” she said. “I thought he would actually get out, and it would be a turning point, and everything would change. I haven’t fully processed Navalny’s death. For now, I don’t know, I don’t have any vision of the future.”

posted by Nelson at 3:27 PM on March 6

Russians Flock to Navalny’s Grave

There are a bunch of claims popping up that the government is using facial recognition software to identify and perhaps arrest attendees. It seems believable (since the Russian government has done that before) but It's not clear to me if this specific claim has been shown to be well-sourced yet or not.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:33 PM on March 6

Top Navalny Aide Attacked With Hammer Outside Home in Lithuania

The chief of staff to Aleksei A. Navalny ... was attacked with a hammer and tear gas outside his home in Lithuania’s capital late Tuesday, according to Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, who said the police and an ambulance had been called to the scene.

Leonid Volkov, who served as one of Mr. Navalny’s top organizers, was pulling up to his house in Vilnius when the attack happened. At least one assailant smashed his car window, sprayed him with tear gas and began beating him with a hammer ...

The attack Tuesday night comes amid broader worries about the safety of those continuing Mr. Navalny’s work from abroad. Hours before the attack, Mr. Volkov was asked in an interview with Meduza about the main risks for Mr. Navalny’s organization. He replied: “The key risk is that we will all be killed.”

posted by Nelson at 8:56 AM on March 13

Related:

Ukraine war latest: Russian anti-Kremlin militia break into Russia, claim to occupy villages

Ilya Ponomarev, a former member of the Russian parliament and now living in exile in Ukraine, claimed that the Russian militia groups entered Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk oblasts for a "joint operation."

"The border towns of Lozovaya Rudka in Belgorod Oblast are fully under the control of the liberation forces," he said on Facebook. "In Tyotkino in Kursk Oblast, a small arms battle is underway at the moment."

The Freedom of Russia Legion later published a video purporting to show the unit operating in Tyotkino, claiming to have destroyed a Russian armored personnel carrier in the village.

What do we know about the ‘Siberian Battalion’ that reportedly crossed into Russia?

The Siberian Battalion was the third unit established by Ukraine for Russian nationals who want to join the fight against the Kremlin. The battalion was meant primarily for ethnic minorities coming from Siberia, including Buryats, Yakuts, Tuvans, and others.

[...]

Another fighter, who goes by the callsign Johnny, 32, left Russia in February 2022, when the country started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

He first settled abroad before his friends helped him connect with the Civic Council, recruiting for Ukraine. He joined the Siberian Battalion in October.

His family doesn't know that he is fighting for Ukraine, and Johnny grew disillusioned with those who stayed in Russia.

"I thought there would be a revolution in Russia when the mobilization started – this was my mistake," he said.

"When the full-scale war began, my mind was set, and I decided to join any battalion I could in Ukraine. From my school years, I have always fought against (Vladimir) Putin's regime."

In words that echo those of his fellow soldiers, he determinedly eyes a Ukrainian victory. "First of all, we have to liberate all territories, and afterward, fully destroy Putin's regime."

posted by UN at 10:30 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]