Questions about Alexei Navalny
Short answers, pulled from the story.
Who was Alexei Navalny and why was he significant?
Alexei Navalny was a Russian opposition leader, anti-corruption activist, and political prisoner who lived from the 4th of June 1976 to the 16th of February 2024. He founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation in 2011, published investigations into alleged corruption by senior Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin, organised mass protests, and was recognised by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience. He was awarded the Sakharov Prize for his work on human rights.
How was Alexei Navalny poisoned in 2020?
Navalny fell ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow on the 20th of August 2020 and was hospitalised in Omsk before being evacuated to the Charité Hospital in Berlin. German doctors confirmed he was poisoned with a cholinesterase inhibitor, and the German government identified the substance as a Novichok nerve agent on the 2nd of September 2020. A joint investigation by The Insider and Bellingcat implicated a specialised FSB unit that had surveilled Navalny for three years, and a call recorded by Navalny himself revealed the poison was applied to his underwear.
What happened to Alexei Navalny in prison?
After returning to Russia in January 2021, Navalny was sentenced to a corrective labour colony where he reported sleep deprivation used as torture, two spinal disc herniations, and loss of sensation in his hands and legs. His blood potassium levels reached 7.1 mmol per liter, above the threshold requiring immediate treatment. He was subsequently sentenced to an additional nine years in March 2022 and 19 more years in August 2023. He died on the 16th of February 2024 in an Arctic Circle corrective colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
What did the Navalny anti-corruption investigation into Putin's palace allege?
Published on the 19th of January 2021, the investigation by Navalny and the FBK alleged that President Vladimir Putin used fraudulently obtained funds to build a massive estate near Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai. Navalny described the estate as 39 times the size of Monaco, with the Federal Security Service owning 70 square kilometers of surrounding land, and the construction cost exceeding 100 billion rubles. The YouTube video received more than 20 million views in its first day and over 92 million within a week. Putin denied ownership, and the oligarch Arkady Rotenberg, his childhood friend and judo partner, claimed the estate was his.
How did Alexei Navalny perform in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election?
Navalny received 27.2 percent of the vote in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election, well above the 15-20 percent that major polling organisations had predicted. The incumbent mayor Sergey Sobyanin won with 51 percent of the vote. Navalny's campaign raised 103.4 million rubles in total, of which 97.3 million came from individual donors across Russia, and involved roughly 20,000 volunteers.
Why was Alexei Navalny barred from the 2018 Russian presidential election?
Russia's Central Electoral Commission barred Navalny from the 2018 presidential election in December 2017, citing his conviction in the Kirovles embezzlement case. The European Court of Human Rights had already ruled in 2016 that Russia violated Navalny's right to a fair trial in that case and ordered Russia to pay him 56,000 euros. The European Union said Navalny's removal cast serious doubt on the legitimacy of the election, and Navalny called for a boycott.