Alexei Navalny was one of the most active opponents of Vladimir Putin’s presidency: he was detained in Russia in 2021. He has devoted much of his life to trying to expose the Russian leader and survived a poisoning attempt in 2020.
A former member of the nationalist party, Navalny sparked a wave of protests in 2011 against Russian election fraud and government corruption.
The demonstrations, which resulted in the activist’s first arrest, attracted record numbers of people. These protests led to his arrest for the first time.
His reputation began to strengthen when he received 27% of the vote in the Moscow Chamber elections in 2013. Navalny, a lawyer by profession, began devoting his life to investigating Putin’s actions and sharing on video what he discovered.
The revelations sparked hostility within the Kremlin. Navalny even released images of Putin’s luxurious palace, mansions and yachts of former President Dmitry Medvedev.
The video of Putin’s palace has been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube. The Kremlin said it was a “pseudo-investigation,” and the Russian president called it “boring.”
In 2020, Navalny fell into a coma on suspicion of poisoning and was taken to Germany for treatment. He recovered and returned to Russia in 2021, when he was arrested and sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.
The prison in which he was found was considered one of the harshest in the world. Known as the “Polar Wolf”, it is located in Siberia and prisoners are routinely subjected to aggression, humiliation, electric shocks, and being left naked or in wet clothes in cold cells.
Following his sentencing, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he should be released immediately under threat of endangering Navalny’s life.
The activist went on a hunger strike and said that the colony authorities were not providing adequate treatment for his health problems.
He was in prison this Friday when news of his death broke. The Kremlin said it had no information about the cause of death.
Author: Miguel Pinheiro Correia This Daniela Vilar Santos
Source: CM Jornal

I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.