The extermination of Navalny, a bad omen

Anna Colleen Lebedev is a Russian-French professor of Political Science at the University of Nanterre, specializing in post-Soviet societies.

Entering, last Friday, on social networks, she saw two different worlds in her feed.

On the one hand, her Russian friends, stunned, bewildered, devastated by the news of Alexei Navalny’s death in the polar penal colony where the Russian repressive apparatus had locked him up.

Portraits of Navalny, photos taken at the makeshift monuments erected by some brave people in Russia to honor him.

On the other hand, her Ukrainian friends, exhausted from worry and fatigue, full of rage, were sharing news from the front, honoring civilians and soldiers killed by Russian attacks, collecting money to buy drones or military equipment.

No trace of Alexei Navalny in these messages, with the exception, from time to time, of some ironic comment about his death, with that black and cruel humor that helps Ukrainians endure the war.

This gap was no accident.

It highlights the complexity of the relationship between Ukrainians and Navalny, despite their common enemy, the Kremlin.

Ukrainians have never forgotten his origins in the Russian nationalist movement, those old derogatory statements of his about anything un-Russian, and most of all they have never forgotten how he reacted when Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014: as did 88% of Russians .

Navalny had acknowledged a flagrant violation of international rules, however, declaring that Crimea was now and would remain “part of Russia” for the foreseeable future.

Over time, of course, he softened his position, in 2017 he declared that if elected president, he would organize a “fair referendum” in Crimea, trying to involve Ukraine and the EU in it; meanwhile, as early as 2015 he was saying that “the Russia must withdraw its troops from the Donbass; and he has clearly, since the beginning of the all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine, opposed the war, placing all the blame for it on Vladimir Putin.

“We – Russia – want to be a peaceful nation. Unfortunately, few would call us that today. But let us not become a nation of frightened silent people.

Cowards who pretend not to see the war of aggression against Ukraine launched by our clearly insane tsar” he wrote, from prison now, in March 2022, in a message uploaded by his associates on Instagram, calling on Russians to take to the streets to to stop the war.

He would send the same message again and again through Putin’s gulags, denouncing “this stupid war”, predicting “a historic defeat” in it for Putin – on the eve of the invasion’s first anniversary, he even advocated Ukraine’s return to internationally recognized borders of 1991, which of course includes Crimea, as well as a future compensation of Kiev for the war, with the revenues from Russian oil and natural gas exports.

Nevertheless, for many Ukrainians, Alexei Navalny has not ceased to be seen as jointly responsible for the all-out Russian invasion, one of those who helped to legitimize, in Russia, the idea and its underlying ideology.

In his death, as can be seen from official statements, they saw just one more proof that Vladimir Putin is the head of a murderous regime and that Ukraine cannot, should not, negotiate with him.

Many third-party observers, however, saw the assassination of Russia’s most famous opposition leader as a particularly ominous sign for Ukraine.

Why would Putin target him now? asked Olga Chir, a professor at the University of Toronto, an expert on political violence and repressive regimes, in the Guardian the other day. With Navalny locked up in an arctic prison, he recalled, the threat he represented now seemed very limited.

Killing him would make no sense if Putin intended to continue one-of-the-same after the already scheduled presidential election in March.

For the same, there is only one explanation. Putin is in a position of power right now and he knows this is the time to prepare the ground for a big move ahead – to finally take over Ukraine.

He is starting to get tired of waiting for the western support of Kiev to decrease, due to fatigue and political calculations, for political forces more favorable to him to take power in Europe and the US.

He wants his hands free so he can do what he needs to: declare full conscription, further increase military production, even at the cost of a shrinking economy and the risk of a resurgence of domestic opposition.

And when he does that, he doesn’t want charismatic leaders like Navalny to weaken his political foothold, even in a limited way.

In this sense, the assassination of Alexei Navalny, just one week before today, the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, may be, for the West, the last warning bell before it is too late.

The time he has to support, without yes buts, Ukraine is running out.

And let’s be honest: here we are, Russia’s best hope for a liberal future is for Putin to be defeated in Ukraine.