If you just happened to be an American “journalist” on a propaganda tour, raving about the greatness of Moscow supermarkets and subways, this couldn’t have come at a more awkward time.
And if you think Vladimir Putin feels any embarrassment about it, you don’t understand dictators.
VLADIMIR Putin's top critic Alexei Navalny has died in a hellhole Siberia prison, Russia has claimed.
Prison officials today said the jailed Russian opposition leader, 47, collapsed inside a brutal Polar Wolf jail where he was being kept and could not be resuscitated.'
Navalny, 47, was one of Putin's greatest enemies and his leading domestic critic in Russia - bravely challenging the tyrant's brutal war in Ukraine.
He had suffered serious health problems in jail, and was - according to prison officials - out for a walk in the prison compound when he mysteriously collapsed.
Russian staff then claimed that medics were called, but were not able to resuscitate him.
Conflicting reports claim the Kremlin critic was being held in solitary confinement when he died, according to the Human Rights Foundation.
I actually think it’s possible, and even likely, that Navalny really did collapse in jail and could not be revived. No poison or bullets or pushes out of skyscraper windows required.
Gulag conditions will get you eventually.
He went missing from a hellish Russian jail last year - and supporters warned then that he could be executed.
Navalny was then later found in one of the toughest prisons in the country in Siberia - known as "the Polar Wolf" colony.
A statement from prison officials today read: “On February 16, 2024, in correctional colony No. 3, convict Navalny A.A. felt unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness."
[…]
Two brave Russians, human rights activist Lev Shlosberg and investigative journalist Andrey Zakharov, both said today he was killed by the mad despot.
Zakharov raged: “Navalny did not die, he was killed.
“And they are killing the dream of millions of people to live in a normal country."
And exiled Russian politician Dmitry Gudkov has fumed that even if Putin did not have Navalny assassinated - his death would still be the tyrant's fault.
“Even if Alexey died from “natural” causes, they were caused by his poisoning and further prison torture.
“Blood is on Putin," he fumed.
Gudkov also warned that Navalny's death sets a dangerous precedent for prisoners who oppose Putin to suffer a "death penalty" at the hands of his "henchmen".
Anne Frank died not in a gas chamber, but from typhus. It doesn’t diminish Hitler’s responsibility for her death one bit.
Aside from pro-Russia useful idiots, Navalny was the target of scorn from many too-online supporters of Ukraine, who mocked him as a “controlled opposition” figure whose actual beliefs weren’t much different from Putin’s.
I’d like to think they might be feeling a bit embarrassed and ashamed this morning, too.
The no-good-Russians talking point is that Russians who actually oppose Putin and the war should be taking to the streets, if not taking up arms against him.1
In fact, thousands of Russians have been arrested for protesting. Unfortunately, the fate of Navalny shows why many more prefer to keep any misgivings to themselves and just go about their business. That’s usually the way under authoritarian governments.
It’s easy for me to say, writing from the safety of Canada, but only Russians can save their country from itself. Navalny’s death doesn’t show that Putin is strong. It shows that the nuclear-armed strongman was afraid of a man who had nothing but his voice.
The extreme version of this belief is that Russians should not only be barred from entering other countries, but that those already living in other countries should be forcibly returned en masse.