Who is Alexei Navalny? All you need to know about Vladimir Putin's most important critic

Alexei Navalny has been a prominent critic of strongman Russian President Vladimir Putin for over a decade now. He is an opposition leader and vehement critic of the very entrenched Putin-led government. This Russian lawyer has successfully amassed millions of Russian followers on social media and has also managed to get hundreds of protesters to take the streets and then be detained over the subject of his own detention by Russian authorities, in an escalation of the movement that began after he was the target of a vile and devious poisoning attempt last year.

Navalny was a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member. He is the leader of the Russia of the Future Party and the founder of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). He has come to reflects the anguish of the younger generation of Russians who grew up under Putin and seek changes. According to media reports, he is 'the man Putin fears the most', and this is in a part of the world where autocratic leaders have had few qualms of dispatching their political rivals or anything they view as a threat to their rule.

Alexei Navalny surfaces post arrest

Navalny sought economic reforms, a fight against corruption and redressal to prevalent domestic issues in the country. In 2016, Navalny had even announced his intention to contest opposite President Vladimir Putin in the Presidential Elections, 2018. However, Russian election officials had formally barred him, deeming that 'he was not eligible to run for elections'.

The headstrong former lawyer has campaigned against Putin for years despite what he describes as 'an unrelenting state effort to stifle his activity'. Currently, Alexei Navalny is jailed within the Russian prison system. The 44-year-old is said to be lodged in a ‘notorious’ penal colony outside Moscow in Kolchugino located in the Vladimir region, Russia's state-run news agency RIA-Novosti said, citing Moscow's Public Monitoring Commission (ONK) that monitors prisoners. Navalny is held at IK-2 penal camp in detention center-3 to serve his jail time at Moscow prison, pending the outcome of four legal matters which according to him, he says are all trumped up. 

Attorney Vadim Kobzev appearing for Navalny had previously said:

"The detention facility where Navalny has been sent is a place where ’political criminals’ are subjected to frequent and harsh torturous acts until they eventually break down."

On March 21, Navalny had re-surfaced post his arrest by confirming his new home to be the said infamous penal colony outside Moscow. In his statement then, he had likened his location to that at a 'concentration camp'. In his posts carried on Facebook and Instagram, he compared conditions to those depicted in '1984', George Orwell's famous dystopian novel. The said posts spoke of rigorous prison rules; it read, 

"Even in the absence of obvious violence, inmates stood at attention- too frightened to even turn their heads,” and in a way that angled some credibility of people “being beaten nearly to death with wooden hammers.”

He has reported to have been jailed under jarring conditions and has been denied adequate medical care. Russian authorities have supposedly barred him from seeing a doctor of his choice. Navalny has accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his attempted murder. Putin has dismissed such allegations entirely, and in return, has accused Navalny of being part of a United States of America-backed 'dirty hegemony' trick campaign to discredit him. 

Navalny's arrest post-assassination attempt

The fiercest surviving opponent of Russian president Vladimir Putin, Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia in January. He had been in Germany for several months where he was receiving treatment after surviving a nerve agent poisoning attempt on his life, which, it has been claimed, was carried out by Russian agents. The Kremlin (home and symbol of the government of the Russian Federation), has outrightly denied such involvement, however, it has also ruled out any criminal investigation in the poisoning episode.

That Alexei Navalny is a longtime critic of Putin becomes clear from the fact that he was arrested when demonstrations against Putin kicked off in 2011. Navalny is categorised as one of the few long-standing vociferous opposing elements in Russia. However, his bravery in returning to Russia after barely surviving assassination and his subsequent travails in prison have earmarked him as an anti-Putin icon and this is evident from the Russian President using a state-of-the-union type address to warn international agencies and countries from pulling on the Navalny thread too hard.