I guess we all knew it was likely at some point. Vladimir Putin is a murderous dictator and it was clear that Navalny was being mistreated in prison. But it’s still shocking and depressing that it has happened.
The death of Aleksei A. Navalny, reported by the authorities in Russia on Friday, would leave the country without its most prominent opposition voice at a time when President Vladimir V. Putin has amassed near-total power, invaded neighboring Ukraine and drawn the sharpest divisions with U.S.-led Western allies since the end of the Cold War.
Mr. Navalny had been serving multiple prison sentences — on what supporters said were fabricated charges — that would likely have kept him locked up until at least 2031. The news of his death shocked world leaders, with Vice President Kamala Harris saying that while the United States was still trying to confirm the reports, it believed “Russia is responsible.”
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement that Mr. Navalny, 47, had lost consciousness and died after taking a walk on Friday in the Arctic prison where he was moved late last year. “All necessary resuscitation measures were taken, which did not lead to positive results,” the statement said.
Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said on social media that his team could not immediately confirm his death and that a lawyer was traveling to the remote town where the prison is. “As soon as we have any information, we will report it,” she said.
Here are some clips and comments about it from this morning:
It’s probably a coincidence that Tucker Carlson is in Moscow right now prancing around singing Russia’s praises and that just this week Trump gave the green light for Putin to invade any country in Europe.
The enormous contrast between Navalny’s civic courage and the corruption of Putin’s regime will remain. Putin is fighting a bloody, lawless, unnecessary war, in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians have been killed or wounded, for no reason other than to serve his own egotistical vision. He is running a cowardly, micromanaged reelection campaign, one in which all real opponents are eliminated and the only candidate who gets airtime is himself. Instead of facing real questions or challenges, he meets tame propagandists such as Tucker Carlson, to whom he offers nothing more than lengthy, circular, and completely false versions of history.
Even behind bars Navalny was a real threat to Putin, because he was living proof that courage is possible, that truth exists, that Russia could be a different kind of country. For a dictator who survives thanks to lies and violence, that kind of challenge was intolerable. Now Putin will be forced to fight against Navalny’s memory, and that is a battle he will never win.
Meanwhile, here’s the spin coming from the right wing.
They simply cannot go any lower.