On February 16th, Alexeï Navalny, opposant of Putin, was found dead in his cell at the prison situated in the Russian Arctic region of Yamal-Nenets.

Alexeï Navalny the last hope for Russia died from “natural causes”. The head of Ukraine’s military declared that he died of a blood clot, according to the Kyiv Post newspaper. His death was announced on February 16 at 2:19 p.m., Moscow time by the prison service of Russia’s Yamal-Nenets Arctic region. The weird thing about his death is that he was supposed to be in an exchange with other prisoners.

According to Maria Pevtchikh, a close collaborator of Mr. Navalny, he should have been exchanged along with “two American citizens” detained by Moscow for a Russian imprisoned in Germany. “I received confirmation (of the fact) that the negotiations were underway and in their final phase,” she added, assuring that the opponent “should have been released in the days to come.” According to Ms. Pevtchikh, her team had been “working” for two years to “get” Alexeï Navalny out of prison “at all costs”, based on an exchange of “Russian spies for political prisoners” in Russia.

The government of Russia tried many times to either kill him or put him in prison. Alexeï got sentenced three times for multiple political reasons and got poisoned.

The first time, on July 18, 2013, Navalny was convicted of embezzlement from Kirovles, a logging operation in the Kirov region of western Russia. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but the prosecutor demanded his release pending an appeal. The higher court subsequently sentenced him to a suspended sentence. On January 17, 2021, he was arrested again. This time, he was sentenced to nine years for fraud and contempt of court. On February 2, 2021, his former reprieve became a firm sentence of two and a half years.

In August 2020, he was poisoned in Siberia during the regional election campaign. At the request of those around him and with the agreement of the Kremlin, he was transferred to Germany where he was treated. Berlin concluded in September that he was poisoned by a Novichok-type substance, a nerve agent developed for military purposes during the Soviet era. 

Born on June 4th, 1976, Navalny was extremely involved in politics. The day before his conviction in 2013, Navalny presented himself as a candidate for mayor of Moscow. He finished second with 27.2% of the vote. The outgoing mayor, who benefited from the support of Vladimir Putin, was Sergey Sobyanin. He is the one who still holds this position today. In 2018, he was also tried to be a presidential candidate. However, the electoral commission declared him ineligible because of his conviction for embezzlement in 2013. Important people like Justin Trudeau and Morvan Lallouet, the author of his biography, defined Navalny as a strong man who defended the democracy, freedom, and rights of Russia’s population.