Arrested in Moscow after returning from Novichok poisoning treatment in Berlin, 44-year-old Alexi Navalny becomes the latest martyr in the futile cause of Russian democracy, something that went by the boards quickly after the collapse of the Soviet Union Dec. 26, 1991. While former Russian Premiers Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin toyed with the idea of democracy, it didn’t resonate at all with 68-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin realized early on in his presidency that only Soviet-style totalitarianism worked in Russia, where peasants, no matter how well educated, want Big Brother to take care them. Since taking over the presidency from Boris Yeltsin in 1999, Putin has had an iron grip on the Kremlin and all aspects of Russian life. Navalny hasn’t paid attention to what happens to dissidents since Putin’s reign at the Kremlin.
Since Putin took over from Yelsin in 1999, all free market reforms and civil liberties, especially the free press, have been dismantled. Navalny should have paid attention to what happened to Russia’s once richest man, 57-year-old Mikhail Khororkovsky, the oligarch who controlled Yukos, Russia’s largest oil company. Khordokovsky amassed a fortune worth about $10 billion before Puin arrested him in 2003 and charged him with tax evasion and money laundering, keeping him imprisoned until Dec. 20, 2013 when Putin released him on the condition that he was exiled to Germany. Khordorkovsky now lives in London but if he returned to Russia he would be subjected to arrest for violating the terms of his parole. Khordorkovsky violeated his parole plotting to overthrows with other Russian exiles Putin’s government, a lesson for some reason Navalny didn’t learn.
Navalny’s dissident activity got worldwide attention when he was poisoned Aug. 20, 2020 in Tomsk, Siberia with the Soviet-era Novichok poison, nearly dying, but rushed to Germany Aug. 20, 2020 for live-saving medical treatment. Spending four months to recover, no one can figure out why he returned to Russia as a martyr only to get arrested. While thousands of anti-Putin protesters took to the streets to protest Navalny’s arrest, there’s little anyone can do to save him. Khordorkovsky learned the hard way spending 10 years eating fish soup in a Siberian prison. If Navalny thinks last weekend’s protests will get him out of jail, he forgets what happened to Khordorkovsky, once Russia’s richest oligarch in 2003. Navalny wants to expose Putin’s corruption, recently putting drone footage of a Putin’s alleged 100,000 square foot Black Sea palace on the Internet.
However miraculous Navalny’s recovery from Novichok poisoning, he expected his return-and-arrest to Russia to put more pressure on Putin and Kremlin. Putin’s been dealing with dissidents like Navalny for over 20 years, something he doesn’t let get in his way. Posting pictures on the Interenet of Putin’s alleged Black Sea palace was designed to show egregious corruption, now rumored the richest man in the world estimated at $200 billion. “Navalny has very much outmaneuvered Putin at each turn since the poisoning. It’s becoming a bit humiliating for him, and I’m no sure how save Navalny might be right now,” said an unnamed central European intelligence official. While Navalny’s situation makes Putin look bad certainly to the European Union or the United States, that doesn’t mean that Putin will release Navalny anytime soon for national security concerns.
Navalny doesn’t recall that democracy evaporated quickly after Yeltin’s brief reign in the Kremlin. Yeltsin, who suffered from eventually terminal heart disease, wasn’t really concerned about democracy in Russia, only building Christ Our Savior Cathedral as a monument after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union to restoring the Russian Orthodox Church to the Russian people. Yeltin succeeded in spending state funds to build one of the world’s greatest modern cathedrals in the heart of Moscow. Democracy was always low on totem pole to Yeltsin and certainly Putn who saw it as a threat to his unending power. Putin can’t help feel sorry for American leaders like Trump that only got four short years to reign. Democrats did a masterful job of painting Trump as a dictator, a menace to American democracy, someone who had to be rmoved from office..
Navalny’s arrest has been discussed in the Brussels-based European Union and in Washington, especially with Biden taking office. “The Biden team has just gotten into place, and this [situation] will pose a well-timed challenge to the U.S. and Europe to work together,” said an unnamed EU diplomat. EU and U.S. officials have little clout when it comes to twisting Putin’s arm over human rights abuses. Putin thought nothing of annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, watching the EU and U.S. do nothing. Incarcerating Navalny is low on the priority list when it comes to the EU and U.S. dealing with Putin. EU officials, especially Germany, are all about buying cheap natural gas and petroleum from Russia, not about rocking the boat to help free Navalny. Whatever opposition to Putin exists in Russia, it pales in comparison to Putin’s popularity polls.
