Putin critic Alexei Navalny knew he would die in Russian prison: memoirs

Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, is expected to die in prison, according to newly released excerpts from his memoirs.

“I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” Navalny wrote in a diary dated March 22, 2022, about two years before he died in an Arctic Circle prison, which corrections officials claimed was “sudden death syndrome” .

“There will be no one to say goodbye to,” the married father of two continued. “All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I will never see my grandchildren again.”

Russian authorities claimed the dissident felt “unwell” and collapsed while walking in February at the IK-3 penal colony in remote Kharp, about 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow — but his family and world leaders have blamed Putin .

Navalny, who was 47 at the time of his death, added that his approach was not one of “passivity.”

“I am trying to do everything I can from here to end authoritarianism (or, more modestly, to contribute to ending it),” he wrote.

To deal with this, he said he would “imagine as realistically as possible the worst that could happen.” And then (…) accept it.”

The New Yorker magazine published excerpts from the memoir “Patriot” on Friday, ahead of its scheduled Oct. 22 release.

Navalny began writing the book, which publisher Alfred A. Knopf called his “last letter to the world,” while receiving treatment after being poisoned in 2020.

He blamed the attempt on his life on the Kremlin. Russian officials denied involvement in both his near-fatal poisoning and death.

He recovered from the nerve agent in Germany and returned to Russia in 2021, where he was promptly taken into custody and sentenced to decades in prison on charges including embezzlement and leading an extremist group.

According to his book, Navalny’s fellow inmates and prison guards would ask him why he voluntarily returned to Russia.

“I don’t want to give up or betray my country,” he explained in a clip from January 17, a month before his death.

“If your beliefs mean anything, you must be willing to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary,” he wrote.

Navalny rose to prominence by organizing protests against Putin and forming teams across the country to expose corruption.

He showed a sense of humor in the book, writing about a bet he made with his lawyers about the length of an upcoming prison sentence.

“Olga was eleven to fifteen years old,” he wrote. “Vadim surprised everyone with his prediction of exactly twelve years and six months. I guessed seven to eight years and was the winner.”

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said his story should “inspire others to stand up for what is right and never lose sight of the values ​​that really matter.”

“Through its pages, readers will get to know the man I loved dearly – a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage,” Navalnaya said in a statement in April.

Half a million copies are expected to be published in the US, with a simultaneous release in multiple countries. It has been translated into 11 different languages.

With Postal Wires