Alexei Navalny: Dissent is dangerous in Russia, but activists refuse to give up

//Summary - Level-C2//

Russia has seen an escalation in the threat to dissent, epitomised by the deaths of prominent opposition figures Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov and the imprisonment of Vladimir Kara-Murza. Despite the severe repercussions, including imprisonment and poisoning, Kara-Murza and Navalny's commitment to political freedom remains undiminished. Navalny's return to Russia after the assassination attempt and Kara-Murza's choice of imprisonment over safety abroad underline their commitment. Their actions and the support of their spouses, who actively advocate and maintain hope for change, highlight a steadfast resistance to the oppressive regime. The narrative reflects the high cost of dissent in Russia but also the unyielding belief in the possibility of a free future despite the current climate of fear and repression.

//Postscript//

Where is the truth?
We need to gather not only information from Western countries but also voices from different points of view.
Perhaps no one knows the absolute truth.
But it is hazardous to have only one answer.
Because our world is made up of different countries, the world is not one.

But we have not lost hope.
Both kinds of propaganda are very clever.
It has become so difficult to imagine a bright future for us that we almost faint.
Well, maybe there wasn't a bright future in the first place.

We have to remember every event.
This event happens, and then the next one happens.
Who benefits? Who is affected?
Who wants order and justice? Who wants to create confusion and chaos, and why?

We may soon stop asking for anything.
We may simply be living a life of meaningless time-killing and wasting and become complicit in the violence of indifference.

But we must not lose hope.
We think for ourselves, see and hear things, and make decisions based on real experiences.
We need more 'real' experiences.
It's not extraordinary or glamorous, but we must find meaning in our everyday lives.
We may soon be able to create a world where consensus is possible.

1)
After the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, another political prisoner is trying to keep hope for change alive - even from behind bars.

"Freedom is expensive," opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza once wrote to me from a Russian prison cell.

2)
He was quoting his political mentor, Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in Moscow in 2015 - right next to the Kremlin.

Now, Russian President Vladimir Putin's main rival, Alexei Navalny, is dead.

The price of political opposition in modern Russia has never been higher, or the goal of change so far away.

3)
Such is the fear of reprisals that Navalny's death has not sparked mass, angry protests. Several hundred people were arrested simply for laying flowers in his memory.

But Mr Kara-Murza refuses to give up his fight or his hope.

4)
This week, he urged opposition supporters to "work even harder" to achieve what Navalny and Nemtsov fought for: the chance to live in a free country.

He made his own choice long ago. "The price of speaking out is high," the activist wrote shortly after his arrest in 2022.

"But the price of silence is unacceptable."

5)
Alexei Navalny, who was 47, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, are very different men.

Navalny was a social media phenomenon, a charismatic orator with some of the egotism of a born leader.

Mr Kara-Murza is a soft-spoken intellectual - more backroom lobbyist than crowd-puller.

He's still not a household name in Russia.

6)
But both men shared the same drive and conviction that Putin's Russia was not forever and that political freedom was possible.

While Navalny produced a video exposing corruption at the highest power levels, Kara-Murza lobbied Western governments for sanctions targeting officials' assets and cash stashed abroad.

Both have paid dearly.

7)
In 2015, five years before Navalny was attacked with a nerve agent, Mr Kara-Murza collapsed and fell into a coma.

Two years later, it happened again. Tests in the US confirmed that he had been poisoned.

But he never stopped speaking his mind, which included denouncing Mr Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Last year, Mr Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason - even though the charge sheet only mentioned peaceful opposition activity.

8)
Return to Russia
When Alexei Navalny decided to fly back to Russia in 2021 after an attempt on his life, some thought he was being foolhardy.

Opposition figures who've chosen exile over imprisonment argue that sacrifice with no prospect of change is futile.

Navalny thought otherwise.

9)
"If your beliefs are worth something, you have to be ready to stand up for them. And if necessary, make some sacrifices," he wrote shortly before his death on February 16.

Like Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza has a wife and children. He also has residency in the US and a British passport. But he never hesitated to return to Russia.

10)
"I didn't think I had the right to continue my political activity, to call other people to action, when I was sitting safely somewhere else," Mr Kara-Murza wrote to me in 2022, already in prison.

For both men, it was an act of conscience.

Now, one is dead, and the other is locked up far from his family, who've only been allowed one phone call in six months.

11)
"I didn't speak to them myself because I didn't want to take time away from the children," said Evgenia Kara-Murza, describing the call.

The activist's wife gave the three children five minutes each.

"I stood there with a timer," she said.

12)
Strong women

This week, Navalny's widow recorded a video statement urging his allies not to give up.

"I want to live in a free Russia; I want to build a free Russia," Yulia Navalnaya said, vowing to continue her husband's work.

13)
Evgenia Kara-Murza was overwhelmed by her bravery. "She is doing her absolute best to go through hell with her head held high and amazing."

However, Mr Kara-Murza's wife has taken on a demanding role.

Since his arrest in April 2022, she's been travelling the world, lobbying Western officials to help her husband and other political prisoners, and denouncing Russia's war on Ukraine.

14)
The invasion is further proof, as she puts it, of Putin's "murderous regime".

As we spoke, Yevgenia was about to fly back to the US to see her children. Then she was off to London to lobby British ministers to do more for Vladimir, who has dual British-Russian citizenship.

"I want them to be more forceful in getting him out and demanding proper medical treatment," she said.

"But getting a government to care about its citizens is difficult these days."

15)
Persecution in prison
As with Navalny, Mr Kara-Murza has been persecuted in prison.

The activist has been held in solitary confinement for months and has been denied personal belongings, including photographs of his children.

In January, he was moved to a new prison with harsher conditions and deprived of even his books.

16)
His health, damaged by the poisoning, is deteriorating. Pressure for Mr Kara-Murza's release has increased since Navalny's death.

"The nerve damage is now spreading to his right side. It's a serious condition that could lead to paralysis," Yevgenia Kara-Murza told me.

This week, she had a rare sighting of her husband via video link from prison to a Moscow court. He was trying to get the Investigative Committee to open a criminal case for his poisoning.

17)
Mr Kara-Murza was dressed in a black uniform that hung loosely around his frame, a radical change from the tweed jackets that were once his trademark.

But his resolve seemed firmer than ever as he urged Russians not to succumb to despair.

"We don't have that right," he told the few supporters and reporters allowed into the court, insisting that Russia would be free.

"No one can stop the future."

18)
What future?

Yevgenia Kara-Murza has watched this video clip from the court "a thousand times".

"I think he's doing the right thing - and a great thing," she told me.

"People are heartbroken and demoralised, and these uplifting words from people who didn't give in to pressure and intimidation are essential."

19)
"I'm very proud of Vladimir for staying true to himself despite this hell."

Evgenia shares her husband's faith in the future and his strength. Even now, with so many activists in prison or exile.

"The most important thing is to remain human and try to do everything you can," she argues.

"Not giving up."

20)
She points to the end of the USSR and the mass protests that took place, which have always inspired her husband.

"There was nothing - until there was an opportunity for massive collective action in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then people took to the streets," she says.

"We have to do everything possible to be ready for the moment when the regime shows cracks."

"For when we get that chance."

Alexei Navalny: Dissent is dangerous in Russia, but activists refuse to give up

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68395030

The dangers of opposing the government in Russia...those who still don't give up

https://www.bbc.com/japanese/articles/c8vnvqz82q4o

Exclusive: Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo&t=665s

Putin Calls on US to 'Negotiate' on Ukraine in Tucker Carlson Interview - February 8, 2024 By Anton Troianovski(New York Times)

https://takorine-and.hatenablog.com/entry/2024/02/12/200917

Tucker Carlson Tonight 2/25/24 | Tucker Carlson February 25, 2024
RFK Jr explains Ukraine, bio-labs, and who killed his uncle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywW75BjRQew&t=1006s

BORIS JOHNSON, interview in Ukraine: Trump, war and Ukraine's victory in a nutshell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJbjVvMBaP4

John J Mearsheimer On behalf of Julian Assange

https://takorine-and.hatenablog.com/entry/2024/02/23/130859

How Western media chooses who they champion and vilify | The Listening Post

With Alexey Navalny's death and Julian Assange's extradition appeal happening within a week of each other, we look at the selective treatment of the two dissenters in the Western media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jHByEA6z-Y&t=98s

1984 vs Brave New World - How Freedom Dies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9C3vcRlBOY

Mearsheimer, professor at the University of Chicago: "Ukraine has already been defeated."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INvRp93gtJ8&t=86s

2024/2/8:
Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin.
Ten days later:
Navalny died in prison.
March 2024:
An election will be held in Russia. Putin will be re-elected.

*August 20, 2020:
Navalny attempted to be poisoned on board a plane heading to Moscow
Book "The Navalny Case" by Swiss Army Colonel Jacques Baud (chemical and nuclear weapons expert)

Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #414

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_lRdkH_QoY

Twenty Years of Putin Playing the West in 3 Minutes | NYT Opinion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCCTf17ZiIs

Add info)

The fate of an abandoned man - A deep dive into what happened to Mr. Navalny!

1. Digging deeper into Mr Navalny - Is he a tycoon or a foreign agent?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm42lD-fyFY

Of course, I hope Navalny dies a natural death.
But if you look at the timing, Tucker Carlson's interview with President Putin shows that the colossus of Putin that the West has built is crumbling. In other words, it's time for them to discover the lies they've been telling.

And now is the time for warmongers to gather at the Munich Security Conference.
On the Ukrainian front, the Russian military's offensive intensified, and Abdiyev's land finally fell.

They have now pressed the button they had hoped to save until before the vote counting for Russia's presidential election, which begins on March 15, when nothing else can be done.
Isn't he the one who can interpret it that way from an objective situation?

From 2013 to 2014, warmongers in the United States and Britain tried to force regime change in Ukraine while also trying to cause chaos in Russia.
However, although he succeeded in Ukraine, Mr Navalny, who was in charge of Russia, could not produce results.

Therefore, they decided to concentrate on the Kyiv administration, and from then on, his existence became meaningless to them. They preserved him to perform his final service at the optimal time.
Navalny became a hero with his death, and his subordinates passed his aspirations on to the next generation.
On the other hand, his death may also have made Mr Zelensky aware of his master's existence again.