It was the worst possible way of waking up this morning. My first move every day is to reach for my phone to check the news headlines for anything momentous that may have occurred while I slept. And there it was — the thing that I, along with much of the rest of the world, have been dreading for so long: Alexei Navalny was dead.

I have written a great deal about him: his nearly miraculous survival of poisoning by Putin’s KGB; his imprisonment on specious charges of “corruption,” “embezzlement,” and “parole violation”; his disappearance from one prison, prompting an entire series titled “Where Is Alexei Navalny?” And then, his reappearance in a maximum-isolation penal colony 40 miles above the Arctic Circle, his few-and-far-between appearances there, his visibly failing health, and now . . . this.

This was a man who gave his all for a single, unselfish cause: the freedom of his country from tyranny and fascism. Intelligent, handsome, charismatic, serious, witty, focused, driven, courageous, and yes, even noble . . . he was unbeatable even under the harshest conditions. And so he has been beaten, finally, in the only way the Putin regime knows how to win: by killing. Perhaps there was no bullet in the back, or ice axe to his skull, or airplane dropping from the sky; but starvation, withdrawal of medical treatment, and isolation are just as effective, if only slower. And they don’t leave marks. Not externally, at any rate.

But will Vladimir Putin’s fixation on ridding himself of this “nuisance” prove to be a huge blunder after all? World reaction has been that of unanimous condemnation and horror. The United Nations has called for an independent investigation. Navalny’s body must be produced for examination and proper burial.

And after all of that . . . what? There are others — Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsu Kurmasheva, Ksenia Fadeyeva, Lilia Chanysheva, Vadim Ostanin, Sergei Udaltsov, to name a few — who have tried. All are in prison now. Boris Nadezhdin has made a symbolic attempt to run against Putin in next month’s election; he has been eliminated by the Election Commission and twice turned down on appeal to the Russian Supreme Court. What the future holds for him is questionable.

But Navalny’s people — his family in Russia, and his team, most now in exile across Europe — should never let the world forget. Never let Putin forget! Martyrdom is a powerful force, not to be used frivolously. But perhaps now is the right time . . . time to turn the murderer’s own weapon against him.

Do not let this noble man’s death be for naught. To his people, I say: Please, take the baton from him and continue carrying it in his name, for the sake of the good people of Russia and of the free world. Isn’t that what he would want?

Brendochka
2/16/24