Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny sacrificed himself.
He returned to President Vladimir Putin’s Russia knowing full well it could prove fatal. But that’s what real leaders do. They lead by example, even if that means being prepared to offer themselves up — if that’s what it takes to stir people into action.
“I am not afraid and you should not be afraid,” read a handwritten note Navalny pressed against the dock’s glass at one of his many court appearances.
Not that his was ever the intention of his return: Navalny and his supporters hoped he’d eventually reemerge from Putin’s gulags and lead Russia into breaking with its grim past of repression. Incarceration was just something he’d have to endure and risk in his long, defiant and uncompromising campaign to prod the conscience of the Russian people, and cajole them into ousting Putin and smashing the system he and his KGB pals created.
But Navalny’s murder, at the age of 47, now leaves two major questions to be answered: Will Russians respond and pick up the gauntlet he threw down? And will Western powers heed the appeal his daughter Darya made in a trenchant speech to the European Parliament in 2021, and ditch their excuses for restraint and inaction?
Accepting the prestigious Sakharov Prize on her father’s behalf, the then 20-year-old Stanford University student had said: “I don’t understand why those who advocate for pragmatic relations with dictators can’t simply open the history books. It would be a very pragmatic act and having it done, it’s very easy to understand the inescapable political law: the pacification of dictators and tyrants never works.”
Of course, time will tell how the Russian people will react, and whether the resolve of Western powers will be stiffened. However, if past is prologue, the signs aren’t good.
In the past few days, there have only been scattered protests across Russia: In Moscow, mourners have been laying bouquets at the Wall of Grief — a monument to the victims of Stalin-era persecution. Other towns and cities have also seen improvised Navalny memorials pop up. And according to rights group OVD-Info, over 400 people had been detained by Sunday.
But in a country with a population of 143 million, this hardly amounts to a political awakening or outpouring.
No doubt Russian opposition leaders will attribute this to fear — the fear of incurring the wrath of a Kremlin that has ramped up a vicious crackdown on dissent and dissidents, meting out steep jail terms for those rash enough to criticize or object. Shuttering independent news outlets and censoring and blocking social media platforms alongside this repression and intimidation, all of the Kremlin’s efforts have conspired to muffle critical voices and hamper the organization of protests.
Certainly, these are all likely factors. So, too, is the flight of possibly as many as 700,000 Russians, escaping Putin, his war and conscription, and subsequently diminishing the opposition — albeit weakening the economy with their absence.
But taking all this into account, the sad and disturbing truth is that even without the intimidation and dramatic jump in the number of political prisoners, the absence of any serious mass opposition to Putin inside Russia — let alone to his war on Ukraine — speaks volumes.
It’s evidence of the continuing support Putin still has from most Russians, who appear to share his chauvinistic attitude toward Ukraine, the Baltics and Central Asia. They adhere to his historical narrative that Ukraine is irrevocably part of the “Russia World.” And they’re grievance-harboring irredentists too — just look at the polls after Crimea’s annexation in 2014.
Sure, this narrative has been shaped, enforced and curated for them by czars and Soviet commissars over centuries, and it has been reinforced by Putin and his regime for the past two decades. But that isn’t an excuse or justification. And, no doubt, when Putin’s system falls apart, many will scramble to claim they never collaborated or approved of the Russian leader, and that they even offered small everyday resistances where and when they could.
However, there’s scant evidence they’re out of synch with Vladimir the Underpants Poisoner — as Navalny gloriously nicknamed him.
According to Navalny’s onetime chief of staff, his boss rejected the label “dissident,” as it’s broadly associated with a small group of dissenters from the 1960s and 1970s. “There was a dramatic difference between them and our movement because we don’t want to be a minority and we are not,” he’s quoted as saying in David Herzenhorn’s Navalny biography, “The Dissident.”
But while the opposition may not want to be a minority, the awful truth is that it is.
In a February 2021 survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center, only 19 percent of Russians approved of Navalny exposing the corruption and moral bankruptcy of Putin and his cohort, and 56 percent disapproved of it.
The poll prompted Andrei Kolesnikov of Carnegie’s Russia Center to write: “Alexei Navalny’s near-deadly poisoning, his return to Russia, and his subsequent imprisonment have only increased the Russian public’s distrust and disapproval of him.” His explanation for this was that Navalny was “pushing the conformists out of their comfort zone.”
And maybe so, but more notably, it appears the episodes of protest since 2011 have failed to galvanize Russia’s broader middle and lower classes, many of whom are dependent on state jobs — something that has remained a problem for Russia’s opposition leaders. And while Russians may have been cajoled, bullied and coaxed into mass conformism, this is arguably because they’re willing to allow it to happen.
They want to believe Putin — whether out of fear, laziness or conviction.
And what of Western powers? Will Navalny’s death kindle greater resolve and action? There’s been plenty of outrage voiced since Friday, with many Western leaders and officials chorusing that Putin’s the one to blame. The U.K. Foreign Office summoned the Russian envoy in London, and European Council President Charles Michel posted online that “The EU holds the Russian regime for sole responsible for this tragic death.”
But back in 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden had already warned of “devastating” consequences for Russia if Navalny were to die in jail. And it remains unclear what’s left in the West’s toolbox that it’s actually willing to wield. Fear of triggering Russian military escalation, including a nuclear strike, has held Western powers back for the past two years. And while some caution is understandable, all too often it seems they’ve acted in this way to a fault, when maybe they should have been more fearless.
Now, U.S. aid for Ukraine remains stuck in Congress, and NATO allies in Europe are scratching their heads over how to fill the funding gap — especially since Navalny’s death doesn’t appear to have moved the dial on the U.S.’s proposed $61 billion aid package for Kyiv.
But what’s to be feared is that Navalny’s death won’t be the last. Navalny bargained his life, hoping his readiness to die would change things — that Russians would come to their senses and do the right thing. And he hasn’t been alone in making such a high-priced bet.
So, now our thoughts must turn to journalist, historian and opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is still languishing in jail and struggling with deteriorating health. Another brave dissenter incarcerated in Putin’s gulags, another leader who returned to Russia to say enough is enough.