What does the death of Alexei Navalny mean?
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, died on Friday in a penal colony. He was 47.
Navalny’s body has not been released to his family and the cause of death remains unclear.
Navalny has been the Kremlin’s fiercest critic. He publicly denounced the corruption he saw at the core of President Vladimir Putin’s political party at huge personal cost: he barely survived a poisoning attempt and has been imprisoned since 2021.
His death sparked mourning in Russia – where at least 366 people have been detained for expressing their grief – and left the opposition questioning its future.
Yesterday I spoke with Anton Troianovski, the Times’ Moscow bureau chief, about the response to Navalny’s death and the future of the Russian opposition.
What kind of reaction do you see in Russia? How do people grieve?
Across the country, people are laying flowers at memorials to Soviet repressions. Many cities in Russia have these memorials that were generally put up in the 1990s to honor the victims of the gulag and other repressions during the Soviet Union. And it seems that people somehow automatically gravitate to these places to commemorate Navalny.
Of course, we are talking about the minority of people who are brave enough to do this. Human rights groups have already reported hundreds of arrests of people who went just to lay flowers. Even this is a very dangerous statement in today’s Russia. And at the same time, on state television, which is the main news outlet in Russia today, there is almost no reporting of what has happened.
What does this mean for the opposition in Russia?
It is a disastrous time for the opposition in Russia. I don’t think you can say it any other way. Navalny was the hope for people opposed to Vladimir Putin, although Navalny was a controversial figure in some ways. There were people who thought, especially earlier in his political career, that he was a bit too nationalist. He had a rather direct, blunt style that put some off.
But no one disputed that he was the main alternative to Vladimir Putin in Russian politics. He was really the only figure out of all the various political figures over the last 24 years who tried to challenge Putin. He was the only one who was able to appeal not only to urban liberals in Moscow, but really to a much wider section of Russians. He was incredibly adept at using YouTube and social media to penetrate the propaganda bubble created by state television. And he was able to build a national political network that repeatedly managed to organize mass demonstrations.
What can the opposition do in the future?
Shortly before his death, Navalny supported an idea held by another exiled opposition, which said: How about everyone who is opposed to Putin goes to a local polling station at the exact same time on March 17, the last day of the election; And opposition figures say the time should be noon local time in your city.
So this is something that the opposition in exile seems to be pushing a lot on social media, on YouTube. And opposition figures think that even in today’s repressive environment, maybe this is a relatively safe way to protest because no one is saying you can’t go to the polls.
Russia captured Avdiivka
Ukrainian forces withdrew from Avdiivka, a ruined town on the eastern frontline, giving Russia its biggest battlefield victory since it captured Bakhmut in May. The retreat comes at a time when Ukraine’s military is outgunned and thinned.
Ukrainian soldiers in Avdiivka withstood almost continuous shelling and fought fiercely to escape Russian attempts to encircle them. More than 900 of the city’s 30,000 residents remained there, surviving mostly underground on food and supplies brought in by relief workers. Their fate is unknown.
“Natural asset companies” will seek to put a market price on improving ecosystems by using proceeds from public land conservation bids. Ideally, investments in the companies would appreciate as environmental quality improved, yielding returns years later.
No such company exists yet, but the idea is gaining traction with some environmentalists and investors.
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ARTS AND IDEAS
When eating with your hands is encouraged
In the West, only certain foods and scenarios are exempt from cutlery. But in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, eating with your hands is traditional and remains routine for some.
Now, some restaurants in Western countries that serve food from these cultures ask patrons to put down their forks, wash their hands and dig in.
That’s it for today’s update. Thank you for spending part of your morning with us and see you tomorrow. — Dan
PS Today is Presidents Day, a national holiday in the US Financial markets are closed.
You can reach Dan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
