Alexei Navalny

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny (Russian: Алексей Анатольевич Навальный, IPA: [ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ nɐˈvalʲnɨj]; 4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024) was a Russian opposition leader, anti-corruption activist and political prisoner. He founded the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) in 2011. He was recognised by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience and was awarded the Sakharov Prize for his work on human rights.

Through his social media accounts, Navalny and his team published material about corruption in Russia, organised political demonstrations and promoted his campaigns. In a 2011 interview, he described Russia's ruling party—United Russia—as a "party of crooks and thieves", which became a popular byname. Navalny and the FBK have published investigations detailing alleged corruption by high-ranking Russian officials and their associates.

Navalny twice received a suspended sentence for embezzlement, in 2013 and 2014. Both criminal cases have been widely considered politically motivated and intended to bar him from running in future elections. He ran in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election and came in second with 27.2% of the vote, but was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election.

In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalised after being severely poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He was medically evacuated to Berlin and discharged a month later. He accused President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service. In January 2021, Navalny returned to Russia and was immediately detained on accusations of violating parole conditions while hospitalised in Germany. Following his arrest, mass protests were held across Russia. The next month, Navalny's suspended sentence was replaced with a prison sentence of over 2+1⁄2 years' detention, and his organisations were later designated as extremist and liquidated. In March 2022, Navalny was sentenced to an additional nine years in prison after being found guilty of embezzlement and contempt of court in a new trial described as a sham by Amnesty International. Following the rejection of his appeal, Navalny was transferred to a high-security prison in June. In August 2023, he received another sentence of 19 years on extremism charges.

In December 2023, Navalny went missing from prison for almost three weeks. He re-emerged in an Arctic Circle corrective colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. In 2024, the Russian prison service reported that Navalny had died, which subsequently sparked protests in both Russia and various other countries. Accusations against Putin's government in connection with his death have been made by many Western governments and international organisations.