Even after two years in prison, Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny wants to continue fighting for Russia’s liberation from the “rogues” surrounding President Vladimir Putin. “I have no intention of giving them my country and I believe that the darkness is disappearing,” he wrote in a post published on Instagram on the second anniversary of his widely publicized arrest at a Moscow airport on January 17, 2021. He called on his supporters persevere on.
Navalny returned to Moscow after treatment in Germany for a poison attack – despite the danger to his life. Since then he has been in prison. “Russia is my country,” wrote Navalny. “I was born and grew up here, my parents are here, I started a family here,” emphasized the 46-year-old, who human rights activists classify as a political prisoner. “I am a full citizen and have the right to associate with those who think like me – and to engage in political activity.”
“Any resistance is important”
There are more people like him in Russia “than there are venal judges, lying propagandists and thieves in the Kremlin.” Russia must be saved. “It’s robbed, wounded, caught up in an aggressive war, and has become a prison where the most unscrupulous and mendacious scoundrels rule,” Navalny wrote. “Any resistance – even if it’s only symbolic – is important given my currently limited options.”
Navalny had recently spoken of torture in the penal camp. It had taken days and protests from doctors and supporters before the prison system allowed treatment for his illness. Navalny had complained of coughing, chills and fever in his solitary confinement in penal colony 6 in Melekhovo near the city of Kovrov, about 260 kilometers northeast of Moscow.
In the course of his return after treatment in the Berlin Charité and in the Black Forest, Navalny had declared that he wanted to fight Putin in the country – not from afar as a critic abroad. Despite the threat of new penalties, he has repeatedly used his appearances in court proceedings to publicly denounce Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine as a crime.
To mark the second anniversary of his imprisonment, Navalny’s supporters who fled abroad launched the campaign
Warning words were again sent to Moscow from international politics. Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) called on the Russian government on the sidelines of a parliamentary group meeting in Berlin to release the Kremlin critic from prison, give him legal counsel “and, above all, ensure that he can also restore his health”. He hopes that the federal government will follow the request “and that the fate of Alexei Navalny will not be forgotten”.
The member of the Bundestag and chair of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid, Renata Alt (FDP), said about Navalny: “His goal was to strengthen the opposition and resistance in Russia through his presence – despite all attempts at intimidation.” Putin fears nothing more, said Alt. “Even prison will not silence Navalny, he remains Putin’s most prominent adversary and a beacon of hope for the Russian opposition.”
