Navalny’s death deprives Russia’s opposition of a leader and hope

MOSCOW/TBILISI: The death of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny deprives President Vladimir Putin’s opponents of their most formidable leader and the man who, for some, embodied hope of a better future in Russia.

The Russian prison service said Navalny, 47, collapsed and died on Friday after a walk at an Arctic penal colony, a statement his allies and wife could not confirm.

Navalny had been by far the most prominent opposition leader since coming to international prominence during street protests in 2011, and some supporters had believed he would eventually walk free and become Russia’s leader.

His death, if confirmed, leaves the scattered groups that oppose Putin without a figurehead, and no obvious candidate to try to turn any discontent over his demise into mass protests.

“This death is about all of us,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre. “About an indifferent society. About reckless cruelty. About the loss of hope.”

“Now our supreme commander has no competition - he is now the Solus Rex, the lone king,” he said.

Prosecutors warned Russians against participating in any mass protests in Moscow.

Police watched as some Russians came to lay roses and carnations at a monument to victims of Soviet repression in the shadow of the former KGB headquarters on Moscow’s Lubyanka square.

At a vigil in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, where many Navalny supporters have found refuge, hundreds of anti-Kremlin emigres picketed the city’s closed Russian embassy.

Anastasia Panchenko, a former member of Navalny’s team in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, wiped away tears as she spoke of the man she had hoped would become her president.

“We all believed he was strong, that he’d definitely cope with this (prison), that we’d build a wonderful future Russia, that he’d be president, that everything would be okay,” she said.

Though his approval ratings were dwarfed by Putin’s, Navalny offered some urban, educated Russians an alternative to the country’s veteran paramount leader.

Russia’s opposition is in disarray as Putin prepares for an election in March which opposition groups call an “anointment” and will keep him in power until at least 2030.

Putin faces three other candidates whose job, opposition activists say, is to lose. The authorities have cracked down on what remains of Russia’s independent media.

Russian officials cast Navalny as a criminal and extremist who was a puppet of the CIA, which they say wants to sow chaos in an attempt to rip Russia apart and steal its vast resources.