Jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny dies, prison service says

The CNN Film chronicling the 2020 attempted assassination of Alexey Navalny airs on Saturday 9p ET/PT on CNN, CNNi and is streaming on Max.

Jailed Russian opposition figure and outspoken Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, who made global headlines when he was poisoned with a nerve agent in 2020, has died aged 47, the Russian prison service said.

The cause of his reported death remained unclear, but the news drew a forceful reaction from Western leaders Friday, including US President Joe Biden, who pinned the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that “what has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality.”

Navalny had returned to Russia in 2021 from Germany, where he had been treated after being poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent. On arrival, Navalnvy was swiftly arrested on charges he dismissed as politically motivated.

He has been incarcerated ever since, with longstanding concerns for his welfare growing more intense after he was transferred to a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle.

The Russian prison service on Friday said Navalny “felt unwell after a walk” and “almost immediately” lost consciousness. It said it was investigating his “sudden death.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had been informed of the reports and that it is for doctors to determine the cause of Navalny’s death.

“As far as we’re aware, in accordance with all the rules, the prison service is carrying out checks and clarifications,” Peskov told reporters. Asked about reports that the death involved a blood clot, he replied: “I don’t know. Doctors must find it out.”

The announcement shocked his family and supporters as Navalny had appeared in court via video link as recently as Thursday, joking with the judge about how he was running short of money.

Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, initially said the Putin critic’s lawyer was traveling to Kharp, where Navalny had been held since December. “As soon as we have any information, we will report it,” Yarmysh wrote on X.

She later said the reports of Navalny’s death were “most likely true.”

Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, meanwhile, called for Putin to be brought to justice.

“I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family, and with my husband,” she said in emotional remarks that prompted a standing ovation at the Munich Security Conference (MSC), adding that she did not have confirmation of her husband’s death.

“They will be brought to justice and this day will come soon.”

An ambulance crew tried to resuscitate Navalny for more than half an hour on Friday, Labytnang City Hospital told state-run media RIA Novosti. It added the ambulance team reached the prison in less than seven minutes, and doctors reached the patient two minutes later.

“The doctors who arrived at the scene continued the resuscitation measures that the prison’s doctors had already provided. They carried them out for more than half an hour. However, the patient died,” the agency’s interlocutor said, according to RIA.

Lyudmila Navalnaya, Navalny’s mother, told Russian independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta she had last seen her son on February 12 – four days before his death – when he had been “alive, healthy and cheerful.” She said: “I don’t want to hear any condolences.”

Dozens detained

At least 100 people were detained across the country for attending vigils and rallies for Navalny on Friday, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors Russian repression.

In Moscow, a crowd of mourners lay flowers in the snow before a monument to victims of political repression in a growing tribute to the late opposition figure, according to video from the scene.

Navalny was “a symbol of opposition, a symbol of hope for some brighter future for Russia. And there’s a feeling that with his death, this hope dies,” Valeria, a 23-year-old tour guide, told Agence France-Presse in Moscow. “If there had been still been any hope left, it is even less now than it was before,” she said.

“If there had been still been any hope left, it is even less now than it was before,” she said.

The Moscow prosecutor’s office had warned that protesting in the capital’s city center was unauthorized, saying that participation in a “mass event” could lead to arrest.

‘I’m not afraid’

Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August, after he was found guilty of creating an extremist community, financing extremist activists and various other crimes. He was already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges he denies.

Four months later, his lawyers said they had lost contact with Navalny, who was believed to be imprisoned in a penal colony about 150 miles east of Moscow.

He failed to appear at several scheduled court hearings in December. His legal team said on December 22 that he’d been missing for 17 days.

After filing 680 requests to locate Navalny, his team announced on December 25 that they had “found” him more than a thousand miles away at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, known as “Polar Wolf.”

Navalny joins a long list of Russian dissidents who died after challenging Putin’s legitimacy. Many questioned why he continued his campaign despite the clear risks to his safety.

Navalany’s reported death comes shortly before Russia’s presidential election, set to take place on March 17, which is widely seen by the international community as little more than a formality that will secure Putin a fifth term in power.

Even from detention, Navalny had continued to agitate against Putin’s government. In one of his final court appearances on February 8, Navalny urged prison service workers to “vote against Putin.”

A fierce Putin critic

Navalny posed one of the most serious threats to Putin during his rule, which has spanned more than two decades. He organized anti-government street protests and used his blog and social media to expose alleged corruption in the Kremlin and in Russian business.

His struggle earned him global fame when he was poisoned with Novichok in 2020. Navalny was airlifted from the Siberian city of Omsk and arrived comatose at a hospital in Berlin.

A joint investigation by CNN and the group Bellingcat implicated the Russian Security Service (FSB) in Navalny’s poisoning. The investigation found that the FSB toxins team of about six to 10 agents trailed Navalny for more than three years.

Navalny later duped one of the spies, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, into revealing how he was poisoned. He posed as a senior official from Russia’s National Security Council tasked with carrying out an analysis of the poisoning operation, and phoned Kudryavtsev, who provided a detailed account of how the nerve agents was applied to a pair of Navalny’s underpants.

Russia denied involvement in Nalvany’s 2020 poisoning. Putin said at the time that if the Russian security service had wanted to kill Navalny, they “would have finished” the job.

Western condemnation of the Kremlin was swift and fierce following news of Navalny’s death.

Biden laid the blame for Navalny’s death at Putin’s feet while speaking to reporters at the White House. “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said Friday, adding that the Russian opposition figure was “brave,” and “was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Russia has “serious questions” to answer. “Alexey Navalny has been a strong voice for freedom, for democracy for many years and NATO allies have called for his immediate release for a long time,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Germany ahead of the MSC.

Biden previously told reporters in 2021 that he warned Putin that the consequences would be “devastating for Russia,” if Navalny died in prison during the US-Russia summit in Geneva, Switzerland.

In his remarks Friday, Biden said the US was “contemplating what else can be done” to punish Russia in the wake of Navalny’s apparent death. Regarding his 2021 message to Putin, he told reporters, “that was three years ago. In the meantime they’ve faced a hell of a lot of consequences.”

“This tragedy reminds us of the stakes of this moment,” Biden added, urging Republicans to agree to a new round of funding for Ukraine in their war against Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Putin must be held accountable for Navalny’s death at a joint news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Putin does not care who dies as long as he stays in his position.”

‘Freezing’ conditions

Navalny spent his last weeks in a Siberian prison north of the Arctic Circle, where he said he slept under a newspaper for warmth and had to eat his meals within 10 minutes.

He told a Moscow court of “freezing” conditions inside his prison, as he appeared via a video link in January to outline his case against the authorities at the penal colony where he had been held since December.

Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesperson, said the conditions at the Siberian prison were “much worse” than they had been near Moscow, where he had originally been kept.

“It is in the north, so it is very cold there. Even today the light there is for two hours per day,” she said in January. “They definitely tried to isolate Alexey and to make it more difficult to assess him there.”

On Valentine’s Day, two days before Russian authorities said he died, Navalny posted a message on social media to Yulia.

“Baby, everything is like in a song with you: there are cities between us, the take-off lights of airfields, blue snowstorms and thousands of kilometers. But I feel that you are near every second, and I love you more and more,” he said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN’s DJ Judd, Catherine Nicholls, Nadine Schmidt, Katya Krebs, Sharon Braithwaite, Eve Brennan, Uliana Pavlova and Rob Picheta contributed reporting.

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