Putin Critics 'Close to Extinction' in Post-Navalny Era

The death in an Arctic penal colony of Alexei Navalny, the unofficial leader of Russia's pro-democracy opposition movement, is both a severe blow and a rallying cry for the country's embattled anti-Kremlin activists, Zhanna Nemtsova—the daughter of murdered politician Boris Nemtsov—has told Newsweek.

"He was killed, and he was killed on the order of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin," Nemtsova said of Navalny in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in southern Germany this weekend, a landmark political event whose attendees were left reeling by Friday's announcement of Navalny's death.

"My immediate thought was that Alexei died for our country," said Nemtsova, a well-known journalist and pro-democracy activist who founded the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom in honor of her father, a famed Putin critic who was murdered within sight of the Kremlin in 2015.

"He made the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our country," Nemtsova said of Navalny. "On a more personal note, this is very devastating news for me. Of course, I'm talking about Alexei, about his political career, but I also regarded him as my personal friend."

The Russian Federal Penitentiary service announced Navalny's death on Friday, reporting that the opposition leader "felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness." Medical efforts to revive him, they said, proved fruitless.

Putin has used Russia's war on Ukraine to further suppress the country's pro-democratic opposition. Voters will in March partake in the latest installment of Russia's elaborate electoral theater, in which Putin will certainly be re-elected as president. A constitutional amendment signed by Putin in 2021 will allow him to stay in power until at least 2036, when he will be 83 years old.

"I think it was an act of intimidation," Nemtsova said of Navalny's death. Decades of Kremlin suppression, she added, has thinned out the ranks of those willing to stand up to Putin.

"What is the chance that you will choose the career of an opposition politician?" Nemtsova asked. "Close to zero, because it's extremely risky. And the outcome is uncertain. Those people are incredible personalities and very idealistic, very committed to the cause.

"That's why there are very few Russian opposition politicians. We are on the 'Red List,' a species close to extinction. That was my father's expression. All of us are on the red list.

"One thing, which is more encouraging, is that political leaders can emerge really quickly...That's what we saw in Belarus. It's happened, and it can be the same in Russia as well."

Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin by email to request comment.

After Navalny

Western leaders have been quick to express their condolences and condemn Putin, under whose watch—and possibly direct orders—Navalny for years faced legal harassment, threats, and eventually an attempted assassination using poison in 2020.

Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 having spent several months recuperating in Germany. He was immediately arrested and eventually sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.

President Joe Biden in 2021 vowed "devastating consequences" for the Kremlin if Navalny died in prison. His friends, family and supporters are now waiting for a response.

"My thinking is that the U.S. government and European governments should reconsider their policy towards Ukraine," Nemtsova said. "They should approve all new financial packages to provide necessary military assistance—weapons artillery, ammunition, etc.; what Ukraine needs to fight.

"I also think that Europe should be more serious about putting its economy on a war footing…You should defeat Putin militarily, and the front line is in Ukraine."

Sanctions, too, should be tightened, she said, particularly on Kremlin-linked corporations like oil and gas giant Lukoil, which remains unsanctioned despite its links to Putin and the war effort.

"We will see," Nemtsova said when asked how likely a strong Western response is. "It requires political will, and a very clear understanding of the threat Putin's Russia poses to security."

The prevailing hope in Munich this weekend was that Navalny's untimely death might help move the needle on financial and military aid to Ukraine that has proved so sluggish in recent months.

"I hope to God it helps," President Joe Biden said, referring to the Ukraine aid bill gridlocked in Congress for months by partisan disputes.

Regardless, Russia's long-suffering pro-democracy movement—the most prominent surviving members of which are abroad and still fragmented in their vision—has lost a leading light.

"He was not just a charismatic leader," Nemtsova said. "He had very important intellectual input to the political debate in our country and beyond. He was a trendsetter in terms of the political agenda. He clearly set the political agenda and he triggered every major political debate in our country.

"Alexei Navalny was the fiercest critic of Putin, his main nemesis. I think that he is one of the most talented Russian politicians of the 21st century—and I mean opposition politicians, of course. And probably one of the most talented politicians of the 21st century, beyond Russia.

"We're now entering the post-Navalny era, and it's difficult to say what is going to happen."

'Putin Will End'

What will certainly happen are the coming presidential elections and the result is a foregone conclusion.

"It's obvious that Putin will be reelected," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told The New York Times more than a year ago. "Overall, it's definitely high," Peskov told Newsweek of voter support for Putin in January.

Earlier this month, anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin was barred from standing, having initially been allowed to campaign and amass significant popular support.

"Authoritarian regimes always make mistakes, and they face consequences," Nemtsova said. "They didn't expect thousands of people standing in long lines" to express their backing for Nadezhdin, she added. "They cannot afford to have a contender who can get double digit figures who represents an anti-war position."

International observers still fret over the position of the Russian public. There is no opposition political framework through which dissenters can express their sentiments, protests are met with mass arrests, and polls are arguably of limited value in a country where even speaking against the Kremlin's so-called "special military operation" can earn citizens several years behind bars.

"It's hard for everyone, and nobody knows," Nemtsova said of the challenge of tracking Russian public opinion. Some signs though, she said, may speak to disillusionment among her compatriots.

Polls, though of limited reliability, may suggest broad trends. The Russian Field polling group, for example, found in December that half of those surveyed want the war to end in 2024.

The short-lived June 2023 mutiny by the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin may also offer a window into the Russian psyche, Nemtsova said, given the support the uprising quickly gained among people in the city of Rostov-on-Don—the nerve center of the Kremlin's war on Ukraine where Wagner's operations were based—and beyond.

"People are tired, are tired of Putin, and are very tired of the ongoing war," Nemtsova said. "I think that's for sure."

The news of Navalny's death brought fresh demonstrations in Russia, with hundreds detained. Some were detained for doing little more than placing flowers and some mourners also left flowers at the site of Nemtsov's 2015 assassination, which were quickly cleared by police.

"It's an act of bravery even to lay flowers in memory of Alexei Navalny in today's Russia," Nemtsova said.

Western hopes of a pro-democratic mass uprising against Putin's war—or a palace coup by liberal officials—have proved naive, though tens of thousands of Russians risked their freedom and even lives to show their opposition to Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and, later, to mobilization.

In the 2022 documentary, Navalny, the opposition leader recorded a message for Russians to be revisited in the event of his death.

"If they decide to kill me, we are incredibly strong," Navalny said, addressing his fellow-citizens. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good people to do nothing. So don't be inactive."

Nemtsova said hope remains.

"I fully agree with Alexei Navalny's statement," she said. "We should not be afraid, otherwise we will definitely lose."

"Those regimes are strong and at the same time they're weak, because they have no good channels for feedback, and they can make mistakes and it crumbles. Everything ends, and Putin will end.

"We don't know when or what will trigger it. No human being can live forever. And Putin is by no means an exception."