Current Events > Putin Rival Navalny Dies

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Putin eventually killed Navalny from the failed poisoning.

https://www.npr.org/2024/02/16/1231946376/alexei-navalny-death-in-prison-vladimir-putin-opposition
Alexei Navalny, Russian politician who opposed Putin to the end, has died in prison

MOSCOW Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent political opposition figure, has died in a remote Russian prison at age 47.
News of Navalny's death came Friday from the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, above the Arctic Circle.
In a statement, prison authorities said Navalny "felt unwell" after a walk in the prison yard and soon lost consciousness. Attempts by emergency medics to resuscitate him "failed to give positive results."
Navalny had been serving out a lengthy prison sentence for charges including extremism, which were widely seen as punishment for his years of criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin has been informed of Navalny's death. He said prison medics are working to identify the cause of death.
Reactions swiftly poured in from around the world. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Navalny's "death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this."
Concerns over Navalny's well-being and safety while in prison were long-standing.
His family members and supporters say authorities repeatedly denied Navalny medical care and subjected him to long, punishing stints in solitary confinement with the apparent aim of preventing his access to the outside world. A representative of his Anti-Corruption Foundation in Washington, D.C., expressed the belief in April that Navalny was slowly being poisoned in prison.
Yet a video shared by Russia's independent SOTA news service appeared to show Navalny looking healthy and in good spirits during a court hearing the day before his death. Navalny was participating by video feed.
Navalny had been serving out a 19-year prison sentence on charges including extremism, embezzlement and fraud widely seen as Kremlin retribution for his political activities.
A vehement critic of President Putin for more than a decade, Navalny built a national following with campaigns that channeled public outrage over corruption at the highest level of government and promoted a vision that Russians could, one day, live differently.
Even from his prison cell, he was a critic of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Putin's increasingly repressive rule.
Indeed, in the days before his disappearance in December, the opposition figure unveiled a campaign to rally Russians against Putin when he runs for a fifth term as president in elections scheduled for March."

Putin will hold fake elections in March