One Year Since Navalny’s Murder: Putin’s Regime Tightens Its Grip

A year has passed since Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader and anti-corruption activist, was murdered in an Arctic penal colony under Vladimir Putin’s regime. Over the past 25 years, since Putin first took power, numerous political opponents, critics, and dissidents have been jailed, exiled, or killed. The few remaining elements of an open society—democratic accountability, independent media, and free speech—have been systematically destroyed.

Navalny was not a radical; he aimed to reform Russia from within. His Anti-Corruption Foundation exposed state corruption, and he even ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013. However, his growing influence made him a target. He was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election and, in 2020, survived a poisoning attempt with the Novichok nerve agent. After returning to Russia in 2021, he was arrested, sentenced on politically motivated charges, and eventually transferred to the remote Polar Wolf prison, where he was isolated and ultimately killed.

Putin, who has repeatedly rigged elections to maintain power, saw Navalny as a significant threat. So much so that he refused to even mention his name in public. The Kremlin denied responsibility for his death, offering the vague and mocking explanation of “sudden death syndrome.” Navalny was 47 years old. Despite his elimination, the repression continued, targeting opposition figures both inside and outside Russia.

Yulia Navalnaya, his widow, has taken up his cause, leading opposition efforts from exile. In July, Russian authorities charged her with "extremism," a crime that could carry the death penalty. Navalny’s former chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, was brutally attacked in Lithuania in March 2023. Inside Russia, government critics face long prison sentences, physical violence, and persecution. Anti-war activist Aleksei Gorinov was handed an additional three-year sentence in November, while journalist Natalya Filonova, who opposed conscription, has endured increasingly harsh prison conditions since 2022. Amnesty International continues to call for their release, but they are just a few of the many targeted for simply exercising their rights.

Putin's history of repression and violence stretches back decades. From his brutal war against Chechen separatists in the early 2000s to the assassinations of former spy Alexander Litvinenko, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, his rule has been marked by political killings. Wealthy Russians who fall out of favor often meet mysterious deaths, while Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin perished in a suspicious plane crash shortly after challenging Putin’s authority. Beyond Russia, Putin’s military interventions have left devastation in their wake—from the invasion of Georgia in 2008 to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, his support for the Assad regime in Syria in 2015, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The toll of his actions is counted in tens of thousands of lives lost.

Despite this, former U.S. President Donald Trump has called Putin a "genius" and praised his "common sense." Now, as he seeks to return to office, he talks of negotiating with Putin over Ukraine, ignoring the widespread recognition in the West that Putin is an aggressor who must be stopped. His vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, has shown interest in Europe’s pro-Putin far-right movements, seemingly unaware of the risks involved. Navalny, had he been alive, would have been able to expose the true nature of Putin’s rule—but he is no longer here to do so.

In his book Patriot, written from the Arctic prison where he was ultimately killed, Navalny reflected on his fate. “I knew from the outset that I would be imprisoned for life,” he wrote. “Either for the rest of my life, or until the end of the life of this regime.” Had he remained in Germany after his 2020 poisoning, he could have spoken freely, given interviews, and addressed global audiences. Instead, he chose to return to Russia, fully aware that he would likely be jailed for opposing Putin’s rule.

Alongside his political insights, Navalny’s writings reveal his warmth and humor. In a letter to his wife, Yulia, on her birthday, he described the pain of seeing her only through a glass barrier during prison visits. “We do that classic thing everyone knows from the movies—pressing our hands to the glass, saying something good into the telephone. It’s nice, but it’s still only glass we’re touching.” He joked that comedy films had become less funny in prison because laughter is best shared. “Laughing together makes a funny moment 25 percent funnier. Sometimes even 30 percent.” His final words to Yulia were filled with love and hope: “As for the glass, sooner or later we’ll melt it with the heat of our hands. And comedies will be funny again.”

Navalny’s legacy endures in the fight for a free Russia. But a year after his death, the repression continues, and those responsible for his murder remain unpunished.