“Sudden death syndrome'' is what Russian officials told Alexei Navaly’s mother when she arrived at the remote Arctic penal colony where Navalny was imprisoned. The note they handed to Navalny’s mother said that he died at 2:17 PM on Friday, February 16th. According to a prison colony employee, his body was taken to the nearby city of Salekhard for a post-mortem investigation. When Navalny’s mother and members of Navalny’s team visited the morgue in Salekhard, it was closed and they were told that the body was not there. According to Russia’s Investigative Committee, the Salekhard Investigative Committee told Navalny's lawyers that the cause of Navalny’s death had not yet been established and that his body would not be handed over until new investigations were completed.“They’re driving us around in circles and covering their tracks,” said spokesperson Kira Yarmysh. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny felt sick after a walk and fell unconscious, unable to be revived by the ambulance service that had arrived shortly after at the penal colony in the town of Kharp, which was about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow. Officially, the cause of death is “being established.”

Alexei Navalny, the 47-year old Russian opposition leader, was arguably the most well-known and inspiring anti-corruption crusader in Russia and abroad and a firm critic of Putin’s regime. Throughout his life, he vehemently campaigned against governmental corruption, organized significant anti-Kremlin protests, and ran for public office. In 2021, his fame grew when he fell severely ill on a flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk, causing the plane to make an emergency landing. Doctors determined that he had been poisoned with a strain of Novichok, a nerve agent that nearly killed Russian spy Sergei Skripal in 2018. Although the Kremlin repeatedly denied that they were behind the poisoning, Navalny released a call he allegedly made to the Federal Security Service (FSB), who was rumored to have carried out the almost-lethal poisoning. Navalny was subsequently in a medically-induced coma for two weeks after the incident. While he was recovering in Germany, Russian officials declared that Navalny had violated the terms of a suspended sentence and would be arrested if he returned home. Despite his looming arrest, Navalny flew home, marched up to passport control, and stepped into custody. He declared, “I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs.” His imprisonment and the lengthening of his sentence sparked widespread protests in Russia, leading  to the detainment of over 10,000 people. Less than a month after Putin sent troops to invade Ukraine in February of 2022, Navalny received another nine-year term for embezzlement and contempt of court. In late August, he was convicted of extremism and sentenced to 19 years in prison. Last December, he was moved to a maximum-security prison north of the Arctic circle. After his last sentencing, Navalny commented that he understood his situation, stating that he was “serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of this regime.”

His unexpected death on February 16th, less than a month before an election that will give Putin another six years in power, led to outrage in Russia and abroad. “Navalny was murdered. We still don’t know how we’ll keep living, but together, we’ll think of something,” Maria Pevchikh, the head of the board of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation wrote on X. She further commented that Navalny will “live on forever in millions of hearts.” Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, made an appearance at a security conference in Germany just hours after his death. Although she had considered canceling, she thought about what her late husband would do in her own situation; “I’m sure that he would be here.” If the rumors were true and the Kremlin and Putin were in fact behind the death of her husband, she stated, “I want Putin and everyone around Putin, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family and to my husband. And this day will come very soon.” Russians came to lay flowers in honor of Navalny at the memorials of Soviet-era purges. Police continued to detain people at these memorial events as people shouted “Shame!” and “Killer!”

Internationally, similar outrage was shared. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, “[Putin] is a thug who maintains power through corruption and violence. It’s absurd to perceive Putin as the supposedly legitimate head of the Russian state.” U.S. President Joe Biden said, “There is no doubt that the death of Navalny was a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did,” despite acknowledging that Washington doesn't know what exactly happened. U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated that “there should be consequences'' for “appalling human rights outrages like this,” and further stated that Britain “will be taking action.” Speaking to broadcasters in Munich, Germany, Cameron stated that Britain will be looking into “whether there are individual people that are responsible” and “whether individual measures and actions'' can be taken. However, he did not specify if Britain’s response would consist of financial sanctions or other measures.

For many Russians, Navalany was an emblem of hope. His death leaves a wake of uncertainty as Russians encounter a predictable political future – one involving Putin. A woman laying flowers for Navalny in Moscow commented that Navalny was the “the last beacon of hope for anything to change, and that hope died. So the only thing I want to do now is cry, I have no more words.”

Information received from the Associated Press.