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Possibly the aircraft crash wherein Yevgeny Prigozhin died final summer season, after he led an rebellion in opposition to Vadimir Putin, actually was an accident.
Possibly Boris Nemtsov being shot to dying in February 2015, simply two days earlier than he was to steer an opposition rally in Moscow, was a random crime.
Possibly Sergei Magnitsky’s dying in jail, after he’d helped uncover tax fraud within the Russian authorities, actually was simply the form of coronary heart assault anybody can undergo.
And possibly it was a stranger who spiked Alexander Litvenenko’s inexperienced tea with polonium, which killed him in 2006.
There a minimum of a dozen opponents of Vladimir Putin and his insurance policies who’ve one way or the other been shot, poisoned, or fell out of home windows to their deaths.
Alexei Navalny survived a poisoning in 2020 — brokers smeared the powder in his underpants — as he flew to Moscow from Siberia, the place he had been doing opposition work in opposition to the Putin regime. Medical doctors in Germany saved his life; however he did not keep there safely, along with his household, and grow to be a high-priced pundit. Alexei Navalny returned to Russia, the place he was instantly arrested and charged.
”That is the way it works,” he instructed the courtroom. ”They put one man in jail to make hundreds of thousands scared…
”(A)ll of this, the Nationwide Guard, this [defendant’s] cage. It is a present of weak point, simply weak point. … You’ll be able to’t lock up hundreds of thousands and tons of of hundreds of individuals. And I very a lot hope that individuals might be an increasing number of conscious of this. And after they’re conscious, a second will come when all this can crumble.
”My life most likely is not price a penny,” Navalny mentioned.
”And I need to say that there are lots of good issues in Russia now, and the very best are these very people who find themselves not afraid, who do not forged their eyes down on the desk, and who won’t ever surrender our nation to a bunch of corrupt officers who’ve traded our motherland for their very own palaces, vineyards, and aqua-discos.”
The courtroom speech of Alexei Navalny. He was 47 years previous. He leaves behind his spouse, Yulia, a daughter, Daria, and their son, Zakhar.