Navalny was neither a politician nor a political opponent to anyone. End of. He was the most visible and vocal critic of Putin for exclusively western audiences.
In other words, a western narrative construct.
Navalny began his career as a businessman in the 2000’s… buying companies in order to privatise their profits (which was illegal and an activity that Putin was fighting against). He was sentenced to five years in prison for this activity, which was (rather leniently) suspended.
Then he became involved in the cosmetics company Yves Rocher, along with his brother Oleg. Oleg was a manager at the auto-sort office of the Russian Post Office in Podolsk and pushed Rocher to use the services of Glavpodpiska (GPA) for logistical purposes. GPA was owned by the Navalny family. This led to an investigation into illegal enrichment and abuse of an official position. Oleg and Alexei were sentenced to three and a half years in prison with Alexei’s sentence suspended (which prohibited him from leaving Russia). This suspended sentence was still in effect during Navalny’s alleged poisoning (see below).
Both brothers took their case to the ECHR which rejected the allegation that their conviction was politically-motivated.
In the early 2000’s Alexei was an advisor to Nikita Belykh, governor of Kirov and a bit of a nationalist; this is the closest thing to a ‘political position’ that Navalny ever held, and it was an unelected appointment.
In 2005, Navalny co-founded the nationalist Democratic Alternative movement and in 2007 he co-founded the ultra-nationalist group, Narod. Neither were successful or popular and both were ultimately merged with two other Russian nationalist movements, MAII and Great Russia to form a new coalition, the ‘Russian National Movement.’
During this time Navalny campaigned for the legalisation of firearms, coupling it with his anti-immigration/anti-muslim stance.
In 2010, Navalny participated in the Yale World Fellows Program, a training program for foreign nationals identified by US officials as potential ‘future leaders’ in their respective countries. Other members of Navalny’s team also attended, including his campaign manager and ‘chief of staff’ Leonid Volkov…
In 2011 and again in 2012, Navalny (by now inexplicably the darling of western media, given his nationalist, anti-muslim, anti-immigration and general supremacist posture) took a central organisational role in both anti-corruption and ultra-nationalist events (replete with swastika-adorned skinheads who gladly sieg-heiled for the cameras), particularly in Moscow; often these events merged their message.
So… in short, Navalny was a corrupt and convicted businessman with nationalist, anti-liberal, racist and xenophobic political beginnings taken under the wing of the US and promoted throughout the west as a champion of democracy, anti-corruption reform and as anti-Putin as we westerners prefer.
I should say that I’m not ‘parroting’ the Russian perspective on Navalny – from what I can see, most Russians don’t have a perspective on him at all, he’s that insignificant a figure within Russia – but as I don’t read/speak Russian, I glean my information from reports from Western media, sources and authorities (such as this Salon article from 2017 regarding Navalny).
As for the infamous 2020 novitchok poisoning…
The alleged poisoning occurred on a flight from Tomsk (Siberia) to Moscow in August 2020.
According to his entourage, the poisoning was first alleged to have been administered via tea taken at the airport but this was dropped as the tea turned out to have been made for him by his own colleagues, then via underwear (which included a ‘ruse‘ involving Bellingcat to obtain a telephone ‘confession’ from an FSB ‘assassin’ which is not credible to anyone with even a passing understanding of covert fakery techniques and Bellingcat’s (CIA-sponsored) activities), to – ultimately – from the water bottles Navalny had taken from his hotel in Tomsk before leaving for the airport. The bottles (of course) never materialised or disappeared and the ‘bottles’ story was also later retracted.
Thus the ‘means’ of his alleged poisoning are now thoroughly muddied and discredited, though the ‘underwear’ story is the most-published and remains popular, to date.
Novitchok is a combat-toxicant which never progressed beyond the experimental stage and was never adopted by Soviet Russia, or the Russian Federation; even the associated research facilities were converted to produce chemicals for civilian use in 1987. However, experimental samples were stored in various ex-Soviet territories, including Ukraine.
The German BND (intelligence services) are on record as having acquired novitchok samples from various NATO countries, including Germany, the US, UK, Sweden and Czechoslovakia. The US alone has filed around 140 patents on chemical weapons of this type. Novitchok itself was actually fully-synthesised by a US chemical weapons laboratory in Edgewood in 1998.
Novitchok is an ‘irreversible organo-phosphorus’ toxin which disrupts muscle-function.
Full protective measures have to be taken in examining or treating patients suspected of Novitchok poisoning. None of these measures were taken – ever, and at any time – in respect to Navalny.
Navalny’s flight to Moscow was diverted (via an emergency-landing) to Omsk, where he was examined and treated for three days… but an NGO group (the Cinema for Peace Foundation) demanded that he be treated in Berlin.
As a result, around 31 hours ‘after symptom onset’ he was visited by a German air-ambulance team while in Omsk Hospital as transfer arrangements were hastily being made.
It’s been alleged (without evidence) that ‘the Russians’ attempted to delay his transfer in order to wait for evidence of any chemical substance to disappear… which beggars the question why acquiesce to the transfer at all? Navalny was a suspended-sentence criminal subject to parole requirements, after all. Why not keep him in Omsk for a month rather than allow him to be taken to Germany within three days?
Inconveniently for the western narrative, Putin personally intervened to allow Navalny to be flown to Germany, despite Navalny’s outstanding suspended-sentence status forbidding it. As you do, if you’ve just tried to have him killed with novitchok, right? Navalny was transferred to Berlin via Oslo.
The word ‘novitchok’ was first used by members of his own media team while Navalny was undergoing treatment at the Berlin Charité Hospital in Germany… but not by the hospital authorities.
A later Swedish analysis led to the following conclusion “The presence of REDACTED was confirmed in the patient’s blood” and the Swedish Government has since refused to declassify the data in order to “not harm the relations between Sweden and a foreign power” without specifying whether that foreign power was Germany or the US. Given the stance of Sweden in respect of Russia, it’s doubtful whether they care about Swedish-Russian relations, so it’s unlikely they’re referring to Russia.
Despite declarative and persistent choral statements from multiple western leaders (perhaps even all) and officials that they have ‘unequivocal evidence’ (Merkel) that Navalny was poisoned with novitchok or a ‘military grade nerve agent’ (Stoltenberg), and the seemingly-authoritative involvement of laboratories in Germany, France and Sweden… that evidence has never been provided.
The official reports are still classified and have not been published, or communicated to Russia, despite her numerous requests… much like the investigation reports (including from Germany, Norway and Sweden) into the Nordstream bombing.
If novitchok were confirmed to be the ‘substance’ then a fair question might be… why hide the actual evidence? And why not share that ‘proof’ with the Russians?
The UK Lancet later (January 2021) published an article in which “severe poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor” (which would include novitchok, amongst dozens of others) was ‘diagnosed’ predominantly (although not exclusively) based on blood samples. None of the doctors that published their ‘diagnosis’ in the Lancet had ever visited with, examined, or spoken with Navalny yet…
“Our patient had a very favourable outcome. Presumably, intubation and mechanical ventilation within 2–3 h of symptom onset and absence of preceding severe hypoxia were decisive“
… which would appear to suggest that the intervention of the Russian emergency services and doctors in Omsk may have been ‘decisive’ in Navalny’s favourable outcome, despite their failure to identify novitchok poisoning.
Interestingly, the Lancet article also detailed Navalny’s bloodwork (provided by German doctors), which showed that Navalny was hardly a healthy individual.
Navalny was shown to have ingested medication for the treatment of liver problems, metabolic disorders, pancreatitis, bacterial infection, parkinsons, bipolar disorder and depression.
From this data it can be credibly argued that the presence of ‘cholinesterase inhibitors’ could even be explained by the prescribed drugs ingested by Navalny himself, possibly in combination with alcohol (such as oxazepam, for example, which causes abdominal and muscle cramps when taken with alcohol)… which itself would explain why Navalny’s symptoms were dissimilar to those of Sergei and Yulia Skripal who (in 2018) are also claimed to be victims of novitchok… and the mysterious fact that no other individual that came into contact with Navalny reported suffering any symptoms whatsoever.
Curiously, according to the New York Times in an article replete with ‘…according to Bellingcat’ (a journalist-fronted CIA narrative-regurgitator)…
“Shortly after Mr. Navalny’s arrival in Berlin, representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service provided members of the German government with details about the poisoning, including the identities of the Federal Security Service officers involved, that directly implicated the Russian government, according to the senior German security official with knowledge of the matter.”
Oh really. How strange.
Anyhoo, back to events…
Fortunately, Navalny got better and recovered in around a month and was released from Berlin Charité Hospital in Sept 2020.
Bearing in mind that the requirements of his parole conditions were that Navalny was required to report twice a month to the Russian prison authority until the end of his probation period (Dec 2020), it’s inexplicable that Navalny refused to return to Russia immediately, as was a condition of his release (to travel to Germany).
Navalny violated this obligation six times in 2020, which signals some clemency on behalf of the Russian authorities (along with the uncommon leniency of his sentence for corruption).
To be clear, Navalny didn’t violate his parole due to his time in hospital but due to his three-month-long tour of Europe following discharge (with a clean bill of health), which included giving interviews to media outlets about his ‘poisoning,’ teleconferences with EU parliamentarians where he demanded sanctions against Russia, and a sunny holiday in the Canary Islands.
The Russian prison authorities sent him a final warning to report on Dec 28, which Navalny publicly ignored. As a result the authorities revoked the ‘suspended’ status of his prison sentence, in accordance with the law. These parole violations and failures to comply are why he ended up in prison.
Navalny then returned from his holiday to Germany to make his oscar-winning ‘documentary’ (completed on Jan 13 2021) before leaving for Russia on Jan 17.
It’s a curious truth that had Navalny returned to Russia before December 31st 2020 and attended his mandatory parole meeting, then his three and a half year suspended sentence would have ended without consequence. Navalny would have served his suspended sentence in entirety and been able to walk away a completely free man, with no restrictions (including travel) on him whatsoever. Navalny, his wife and colleagues, must have known this… so why then did he deliberately fail to attend his parole meetings for three entire months… ignore a final warning from the Russian prison authorities… and return to Russia knowing that he would be required to serve prison time?
Knowing the consequences, why did he decide to return at all?
Perhaps he expected yet more continued leniency and clemency from the Russian authorities or perhaps he was prepared to go to prison ‘for his beliefs,’ or ‘force the hand’ of the Russian prison authorities for the optics… all supposition, of course… no-one knows why.
None of this indicates that Putin was ‘persecuting his political opponents’ or even that Navalny was definitively ‘poisoned with novitchok.’
As a final background note, Putin’s main political opponent is the Communist Party, not the extremists and activists that ‘follow’ Navalny.
According to the Russian Prison Authorities, “the 47-year-old [Navalny] took a short walk at his Siberian penal colony, said he felt unwell, then collapsed and never regained consciousness” from “sudden death syndrome”(BBC). Of course, this is assumed – with no evidence whatsoever – to be a lie.
The media and our governing classes are going to have fun telling stories about Navalny’s death while I strongly suspect the Russians are telling the truth.
It’s interesting to note that his sainted wife, Yulia (who was curiously on hand at the Munich Security Conference when the news broke that her husband had died), is already alleging that Putin had him killed in prison… and with novitchok. And that Putin is not releasing his body so that all traces of novitchok disappear. Again.
Additional reports :
Navalny was killed by a ‘KGB trademark’ single punch to the heart (Daily Mail).
UK sanctions Russian prison chiefs after Navalny’s death (BBC).
Held down and forced to swallow Novitchok (Daily Mail).
Mother demands Putin return son’s body (BBC).
Mother accuses Russian authorities of planning a secret funeral (BBC).
Mother given hours to agree secret burial (BBC).
Authorities return body of Navalny to mother (BBC).
Biden meets with Navalny’s widow (Guardian).
A swift note on this… occurrence; Navalny was a nationalist and a supporter of Russia’s action in Ukraine. What Yulia and her daughter (dressed for mourning, obviously) are doing with Biden is highly inappropriate to the memory and runs counter to the political stance of her husband. If anything clearly signifies the ‘western construct’ that Navalny was, it’s this.
Putin critic about to be freed in prisoner swap when he was killed (BBC).
Belarussian opposition leader says Navalny ‘murder’ a green light for activist killings (Daily Mail).
Navalny died of detached blood clot, which “aligns with initial assertions made by Kremlin” (Kyiv Post); this statement from the CIA-backed Intelligence Chief of Ukraine, Budanov.
And… eventually… “Putin Didn’t Directly Order Alexei Navalny’s February Death” (Wall Street Journal).