Russian opposition has gone into coma due to the death of Alexei Navalny

The death of Navalny, a lawyer and blogger who has become the face of the opposition in one of the most authoritarian regimes today, has sparked a wave of outrage across the Western Hemisphere, frustrated by official syncretism in terms of the causes. His death points to the Kremlin as the main person responsible.

Although Russian cities such as Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk were the sites of numerous protests and tributes to Navalny’s memory, many of these gatherings were dispersed and repressed by Russian authorities, leading to mass arrests. And are not afraid to use weapons. Public forces, especially since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February 2022.

Without knowing for sure why Navalny returned from Germany to Russian territory after being poisoned in 2020 with Novichok, a favorite chemical agent of the Soviet era, his followers are left without an alternative political project, proposed by Putin, that would reassure. Not going to. For all Russian citizens, neither with the declaration of war against Kiev, nor with the war management that its military sector is promoting on the battlefield.

After learning of Navalny’s death on February 16, Zhanna Nemtsova, the daughter of an opposition leader assassinated years earlier, said, “There is no other person like him in the political arena and I don’t see anyone who would replace him.” Can take.” “He was the most important (Russian) opposition politician of the 21st century,” Nemtsova said.

Nemtsova, who believes Navalny was “murdered”, acknowledged her concern for democracy in Moscow, and described the lawyer’s death as a “terrorist act” on the part of the Kremlin to instill fear among dissident politicians. which demonstrated “great bravery” for Nemstova. Expressing one’s opinion in modern Russia.

Russian opposition: exiled, imprisoned, appeased or dead

Navalny was not the first opposition politician to die under strange circumstances; He is part of a long history of dissident figures who have been killed, imprisoned or exiled during the Putin era.

Zhanna Nemtsova is the daughter of the late Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and political standard-bearer of the Russian opposition, who was assassinated near the Kremlin in 2015 after saying he was about to publish an investigation that revealed Moscow’s involvement. to be performed. In the ‘separatist insurgency’ in eastern Ukraine.

Nemstov’s death was preceded by the death of Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in front of the entrance to her apartment in the Russian capital in 2006 at the age of 48. Politkovskaya was a reporter at an acclaimed opposition media outlet at the time and one of the most important voices on the war in Chechnya.

Another similar case is that of Putin critic and former KGB member Alexander Litvinenko, who was found dead in a London hotel in 2006 after drinking tea poisoned with radioactive isotopes. The British judge overseeing the case, citing a more than 300-page report, concluded that the Kremlin “likely sanctioned” Litvinenko’s murder.

In the most recent episode of national controversy, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the controversial founder of the Wagner mercenary group – the center of the war’s bloodiest fighting in Ukraine – lost his life in a plane crash in August 2023, just months after battlefield mismanagement. After leading an attempted rebellion against Putin’s government.

One of the opposition politicians who survived attempts on his life by poisoning in 2015 and 2017 is Vladimir Kara-Murza, who emerged as one of the main choices of dissidents to stand against Putin in the elections . At least that’s what he thought before he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for “high treason” after accusing Russian forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine.

According to the human rights organization OVD-Info, together with Kara-Murza, there are already 883 active criminal cases in Moscow against citizens protesting hostilities against the neighboring country.

2024 Elections: Putin Vs. Putin

Since coming to power in 2000, Vladimir Putin’s power has strengthened over the years.

A month before the next presidential election in Russia, the path to Putin’s re-election is set, an electoral exercise that seems like a simple formality to legitimize the extension of the current president’s stay in the Kremlin.

However Nemtsova highlights the figure of Boris Nadezhdin, whose popularity is rising after collecting the signatures required to be officially registered as a presidential candidate and who may have “intimidated” the Kremlin because of his popular support. , the Russian judicial system has other plans. For him.

On 8 February, the Russian election commission barred the opposition candidate from running in the presidential election on 17 March, citing irregularities in his electoral registration and ‘falsified signatures’ on the list of over 200,000 signatories supporting his candidacy. Nadezhdin has promised “not to give up”, but the future is not promising.

Alexei Navalny was part of the ‘golden generation’ of the Russian opposition, born in the early days of the Putin-led ruling party and emerging from the ranks of Yabloko, Putin’s last dissident party on the Moscow political scene.

However, its founder Grigory Yablinsky declined to run in the next presidential election in March after meeting with the Russian head of state last November. Yabloko is represented by Yekaterina Duntsova, a freelance journalist who was already politically disqualified in December 2023, after Yablinsky withdrew from the election race.

The outlook for the long-awaited Russian democracy is bleak, as Vladimir Putin has established himself as Moscow’s ‘strong man’ for more than two decades, flexing his political power in all spheres of national public life and three Has exerted its influence on the powers. State.

Amid the long-running war with Ukraine, it seems unlikely that Putin will relinquish command of the Russian giant in the near future. With little opposition and no guarantee of being able to participate in democratic elections, Vladimir Putin is almost certain to remain in the Kremlin.

With EFE, Reuters and local media