Despite three years in prison, Navalny still scares Putin

The March presidential elections in Russia will, of course, be a stage-managed farce, but that doesn’t mean that real politics has been entirely extinguished. It offers a narrow window of opportunity for the opposition to try and connect with the Russian people – so the Kremlin is doing its best to muzzle them.

On the third anniversary of his return to Russia on Wednesday, opposition leader Alexei Navalny issued a statement on X (via his lawyers, his only connection with the outside world) intended to bolster his supporters’ morale. He returned from Germany in 2021 following a poisoning attempt that saw government agents lace his underwear with Novichok. Answering the question as to why he came back even though he knew he would be arrested and imprisoned on trumped-up charges, he framed it in terms of simple patriotism and conviction:

I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs.