Aleksei A. Navalny, the outspoken activist who died in prison on Friday, was born on June 4, 1976, according to his website, and raised outside Moscow by liberal parents who opposed Soviet rule.
Starting his political career as an anti-corruption blogger who organized street protests, Mr Navalny has mobilized a generation of young Russians through social media and become known for investigations into the Russian elite.
Here’s a look at Mr. Navalny’s career:
2000
Mr Navalny, who studied law and economics and worked as a real estate lawyer, joined the liberal Yabloko party the same year Vladimir V. Putin was first elected as Russia’s president. Seeking to organize popular opposition to the Kremlin, he targeted what he called Moscow’s illegal construction projects, moderated political debates, launched a radio show and criticized pro-Putin tycoons in a widely read blog.
Mr Navalny led protests by thousands of Russians angered by reports of fraud in Russia’s parliamentary elections that year, the biggest anti-Kremlin protests since Mr Putin became president.
2013
Mr Navalny was barred from a presidential bid after a Russian court convicted him of fraud. He organized nationwide protests and boycotts against Mr. Putin’s re-election and set up offices and investigative teams across the country to investigate Russia’s elite.
Russian authorities responded by jailing him, accusing him of money laundering and breaking into the homes and offices of activists he was associated with.
August 2020
While flying back to Moscow from Siberia, Mr Navalny became violently ill, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing. More than two days after he was knocked unconscious, Mr Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment after the flight was delayed by Russian doctors who prevented his transport.
Weeks later, the German government said Mr Navalny had been poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent called Novichok, a class of chemical weapons developed by the Soviet Union. A similar weapon was used in 2018 against Sergei V. Skripal, a former Soviet spy, and his daughter in an attack in England that the British government attributed to Russian military intelligence.
December 2020
Bellingcat, an open-source investigative outlet, published a report showing that Russian intelligence officers from the Federal Security Service, or FSB, had monitored Mr Navalny for years and were nearby when he was exposed to Novichok. The Kremlin has continued to deny any involvement in his poisoning.
Days later, Mr. Navalny posted a video on his YouTube channel that he said showed him calling a Russian intelligence officer and tricking him into confessing that he planned to kill Mr. Navalny by planting poison in his underwear.
Five months after his poisoning, Mr Navalny returned to Moscow and was arrested on arrival. Tens of thousands of protesters, mostly young Russians, took to the streets to demand his release in the biggest public showdown in years between the Kremlin and its critics.
Two months later, Russian authorities ordered Mr. Navalny to serve a two-year sentence in a penal colony known for abusing prisoners, beginning a string of prison terms on charges that his supporters said were based on trumped-up charges. He went on a one-week hunger strike to protest the lack of proper medical care from the prison, causing his health to deteriorate.
January 2022
“Navalny,” a documentary that follows the activist for months as he investigated his own poisoning, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, by Canadian director Daniel Roher, received the Oscar for best documentary feature the following year. Yulia Navalnaya, Mr Navalny’s wife, said on stage at the ceremony that her husband was jailed for “speaking the truth” and “defending democracy”.
August 2023
A Russian court sentenced Mr Navalny, who was still in prison, to an additional 19 years on charges of supporting “extremism”. The court ruled that the sentence was to run concurrently with those already in place, meaning he would likely be incarcerated until 2031.
December 2023
Mr. Navalny’s aides lost contact with him for 20 days. Finally, the spokeswoman said, he was found — authorities took him to an Arctic penal colony, officially known as IK-3 Polar Wolf, located in one of Russia’s most remote cities and known for its harsh conditions.
February 15
He was last seen in public on Thursday when he appeared via video link at a court hearing, standing in a prison cage and wearing a black robe.
The next day, Russian authorities reported that he passed out and died after taking a walk around the prison.
February 17
Mr Navalny’s spokeswoman confirmed his death, saying his mother had gone to the penal colony where he was being held and had been told that Russian investigators had taken Mr Navalny’s body to the Arctic town of Salekhard.
