Without Navalny, 'hope dies' for opposition in Russia's dangerous political landscape
Saša Petricic
As news of her husband's death shot through the halls of the Munich Secu‐ rity Conference Friday, a composed Yulia Navalnaya took the stage.
She said Russian President Vladimir Putin would be pun‐ ished for what he's "done to our country, to my family and to my husband."
And then, with the confi‐ dent voice of a woman used to speaking out, she called for Russian and Western support in opposing Putin.
"We should come together and we should fight against this evil," Navalnaya said. "We should fight this horrific regime in Russia today."
The crowd of diplomats and political leaders gave her a standing ovation.
For more than two decades, she has stood by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's side, raising their two children but rarely positioning herself as an inde‐ pendent political figure, de‐ spite once being called "the first lady of the Russian oppo‐ sition" in a Moscow women's magazine.
Hints of a successor emerge
But now, watching from Cana‐ da, Maria Popova, an asso‐ ciate professor of political sci‐ ence at McGill University, says she saw hints of Navalny's political successor.
"She sounded like she's taking the baton and may be ready to lead the organiza‐ tion," Popova said.
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Maybe, she said, Navalny's death means his movement hasn't been "decapitated" af‐ ter all, given the network of committed activists who helped him in dozens of of‐ fices across Russia and with his online campaigns.
Still, she points out that with only 10-20 per cent of Russians ready to question Putin's leadership, Navalnaya would face the same chal‐ lenges and risks her husband did.
Indeed, the political land‐ scape for any opposition to Putin's iron grip is bleak.
All anti-Kremlin candidates have been blocked from run‐ ning against him in next mon‐ th's presidential election.
Over the years, other chal‐ lengers have been killed.
Outspoken critic Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on a Moscow bridge in 2015. He was a physicist turned liberal politician who attacked Putin's leadership for its au‐ thoritarianism and corrup‐ tion.
Last year, mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash after leading a one-day armed mutiny against Putin's military, an act the Russian president called "treason" and vowed to punish.
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Numerous other critics have been gunned down, poi‐ soned or killed in mysterious falls.
Navalny's persistent op‐ position - and his return to Russia in 2020 after an at‐ tempted poisoning - shows rare "stamina and guts" and "balls of Iron," said Boris Bon‐ darev, a former Russian diplo‐ mat at the UN who defected in 2022.
One other opposition fig‐ ure, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has promised some kind of "response on the streets of Moscow on election day or on the day of Alexei Navalny's fu‐ neral."
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Hopes for 'real opposi‐ tion' fade
But Russians see no obvious successor in the country's small opposition movement.
Maya Bagriantseva is a former Moscow journalist who joined a protest follow‐ ing Navalny's death in front of the Russian embassy in Riga.
"The bad thing is, there is almost no political power left that can serve as opposition, as a real opposition, to the current leaders," she said. "I don't see any positive things at the moment."
There were similar feelings on the streets of Moscow, among the few who dared speak out in an atmosphere where police pounced on any‐ one who looked like they were ready to protest - or even mention - Navalny's death.
"Navalny was that symbol of hope. With his death, hope dies," said Valeria, a 23 yearold tour guide. "If there had been any hope left, it is even less now."
Widely seen as "the leader" of a fractured collec‐ tion of opposition organiza‐ tions, many agree Navalany was "one of a kind," said Natia Seskuria, an analyst at the Royal United Services Insti‐ tute in London.
Still, others argue Naval‐ ny's status was always much greater when viewed from abroad by dissidents, opposi‐ tion groups and Western leaders like U.S. President Joe Biden, who called him a "pow‐ erful voice of truth" who stood up to "Putin's brutal‐ ity."
"These groups will now be left with this symbol," said analyst Keir Giles, author of Russia's War on Everybody.
Inside the country it makes little difference, he said, "because Russia has long ago already moved from con‐ trolling the opposition to ac‐ tually eliminating it."
Navalny's death, Giles says, is simply the Kremlin's latest move to do so.