Putin has finally gotten rid of his chief opponent, Alexei Navalny. Officials announced that he died after taking a “walk” in the remote prison where he was confined.

Navalny was a strapping handsome man of 47 who bravely stood up to Putin. He previously survived an attempt to poison him, a near-death experience. Navalny recovered in a German hospital.

He could have stayed in the West and remained a free man, risking the possibility that Putin’s agents would kill him.

Instead, after his recovery, he returned to Moscow to lead the struggle against Putin. He was arrested the instant he stepped off the plane.

Navalny was repeatedly moved into solitary confinement and suffered harsh conditions. While imprisoned, his jail term was increased again and again.

From today’s New York Times:

Mr. Navalny was given a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence in February 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from being poisoned with a nerve agent the previous August. In March 2022, he received a nine-year sentence for embezzlement and fraud in a trial that international observers denounced as “politically motivated” and a “sham.” And in August 2023, he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for “extremism.” 

Mr. Navalny had effectively returned from the dead after his 2020 poisoning and had conducted multiple hunger strikes to improve his treatment, with many of his supporters believing him to be all but invincible. 

During his detention, Mr. Navalny was repeatedly placed in solitary confinement, and complained about severe illnesses. In December, he disappeared for three weeks during his transfer to a penal colony 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Navalny was interviewed by the New York Times in 2021.

An excerpt:

What is the likelihood you will be killed in prison?

In interviews, at points like this, there’s usually a remark in parentheses (laughter). You cannot see me right now, but I assure you, I’m laughing.

For many years, I was forced to make excuses in response to questions like: “Why haven’t you been killed yet?” and “Why haven’t you been jailed?” Now that I have both these boxes checked (the one about murder with a side note: “Well, almost”), I’m asked to gauge the probability of my own death while in prison.

Well, the answer, obviously, can be taken from a joke: 50 percent. I’ll either be killed or not be killed.

Let’s not forget that we clearly have to deal with a person who has lost his mind, Putin. A pathological liar with megalomania and persecutory delusion. Twenty-two years in power would do that to anyone, and what we’re witnessing is a classic situation of a half-mad czar.

Putin is at last free of the one man who led a movement to oust him.

Please Google and watch the documentary “Navalny.” The world has lost a man of courage and principle.

Putin killed Navalny, but he never broke his spirit.