Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks away from his picture after lighting a candle at the end of a service in St. Mary’s Church on the occasion of his birthday, in Berlin, June 4, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Moscow:

Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hiding the truth about Navalny’s death in light of his first death anniversary, Al Jazeera reported.

Al Jazeera noted that Alexei Navalny’s death was officially attributed to natural causes, in an Arctic penal colony last February. Supporters of the late leading Russian opposition leader are commemorating the one-year anniversary of his death by visiting his grave in Moscow, Al Jazeera reported.

“I am grateful to everyone who remembers Alexei, who talks about him, writes about him, who comes to the cemetery. I am grateful to those who have been supporting me this whole year. Your letters, your hugs when we meet, this is what does not let me forget why Alexei did this and why I’m doing this. If so many good people are on one side, we cannot help but win”, Yulia Navalnaya said in a video message as shared by Al Jazeera.

She further said in the video message, “Even now a year after his death he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is trying to erase Alexei’s name from our memory to hide the truth about the murder, to make us come to terms, but he will not succeed.”

“The pain we feel makes us stronger and this year has shown that we are stronger than we thought ourselves”, the video message added.

Alexei Navalny was Russia’s high-profile opposition leader who died on February 16, 2024.

Navalny died in the penal colony in Siberia, where he was serving a 19-year sentence after being found guilty of causing an extremist community, financing extremist activists and various other crimes in August, according to CNN report.

He was already serving sentences of 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges. He had denied the allegations and called it politically motivated.

Navalny was Russia’s high-profile opposition leader and spent years criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. His death came weeks before Russia’s presidential elections, CNN reported.

The European Union (EU) also shared a statement on the death anniversary of Alexei Navalny.

In the statement by the EU, it said, “President Putin and the Russian authorities bear ultimate responsibility” for the death of Alexei Navalny.

“As Russia intensifies its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, it also continues its internal repression, targeting those who stand for democracy. Alexei Navalny gave his life for a free and democratic Russia. Today, his lawyers remain unjustly imprisoned, together with hundreds of political prisoners. Russia must immediately and unconditionally release Alexei Navalny’s lawyers and all political prisoners”, the statement added.

“Since 2020, the EU has sanctioned those responsible for Alexei Navalny’s poisoning, arbitrary arrest, prosecution and politically motivated sentencing. In 2024, the EU adopted a Russia-specific human rights-focused sanctions regime targeting those who commit human rights violations and repression”, the statement said.

In the statement’s conclusion, the European Union gave a call to Russia “end its brutal repression of civil society, media, and opposition members, and to comply with international law.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Brussels:

The EU on Sunday said that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin bore “ultimate responsibility” for the death of Alexei Navalny, as it paid tribute to the late opposition figurehead on the one-year anniversary of his passing.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said Navalny “gave his life for a free and democratic Russia” and called for the release of all political prisoners in the country.

“Today marks one year since the death of Russian opposition leader politician Alexei Navalny, for which President Putin and the Russian authorities bear ultimate responsibility,” Kallas said in a statement.

The charismatic Navalny — Putin’s main opponent who campaigned against government corruption — died a year ago while incarcerated in a remote Arctic penal colony.

Russian authorities have never fully explained his death, which they said happened while he was walking in the prison yard.

“As Russia intensifies its illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, it also continues its internal repression, targeting those who stand for democracy,” Kallas said.

Navalny’s lawyers remain “unjustly imprisoned, together with hundreds of political prisoners”, she added.

“Russia must immediately and unconditionally release Alexei Navalny’s lawyers and all political prisoners,” Kallas said.

Navalny — Putin’s main opponent — was declared an “extremist” by Russian authorities, a ruling that remains in force despite his death, which came less than a month before a presidential election that extended Putin’s more than two-decade rule.

In Russia, anybody who mentions Navalny or his Anti-Corruption Foundation without stating that they have been declared “extremist” is subject to fines, or up to four years in prison for repeated offences.

Until his death, the 47-year-old continued to call for Russians to oppose the Kremlin and denounced Moscow’s Ukraine offensive, even from behind bars.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Paris:

A much-awaited posthumous memoir by Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was published worldwide on Tuesday, containing sometimes humorous descriptions of his life including his time in prison and the now-famous prediction that he expected to die there.

Navalny, the top opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, began writing “Patriot: A Memoir” after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020.

The book recounts his youth, activism, personal life and his fight against Putin’s increasingly authoritarian hold on Russia.

Navalny worked on the manuscript and diaries that form the basis of the book until his death, aged 47, eight months ago.

US magazine The New Yorker and The Times of Britain published excerpts from the book earlier this month, including Navalny’s chilling expectation of his own death.

“I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” he wrote on March 22, 2022.

“There will not be anybody to say goodbye to… All anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren.”

Navalny had been serving a 19-year prison sentence on “extremism” charges in an Arctic penal colony.

His death on February 16 at age 47 drew widespread condemnation, with many blaming Putin.

Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Russia after suffering major health problems from being poisoned in 2020.

“The only thing we should fear is that we will surrender our homeland to be plundered by a gang of liars, thieves, and hypocrites,” he wrote on January 17, 2022.

In a lucid, and sometimes lighthearted, tone Navalny also talks about matters far from politics or activism, such as his taste for cartoons, and the love for his wife, Yulia Navalnaya.

‘Cheery stoicism’

He also describes the drudgery, and pointlessness of daily prison routines: “At work, you sit for seven hours at the sewing machine on a stool below knee height,” he wrote.

“After work, you continue to sit for a few hours on a wooden bench under a portrait of Putin. This is called ‘disciplinary activity.'”

Looking back at his childhood, Navalny remembered that the absence of chewing gum in the Soviet Union seemed to him to indicate his country’s inferiority on the world stage.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Navalny the student observed the corruption among university professors and the wealth grab by oligarchs in the new Russia.

Whatever hope he may have put in post-Soviet Russia’s political elite evaporated with Boris Yeltsin, whom he calls a drunk surrounded by thugs, and Dmitry Medvedev, president between 2008 and 2012, whom he calls both corrupt and stupid.

Navalny said he hated Putin, not only because he targeted him personally, but also because he thought the president had deprived Russia of two decades of development.

In an entry dated January 17, 2024, Navalny responds to the question put to him by his fellow inmates and prison guards: why did he come back to Russia?

“I don’t want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary,” he said.

In the Arctic colony where he was sent in December 2023, walks longer than half an hour were impossible because of the bitter cold, Navalny writes.

On February 16, 2024, he was declared dead, under unclear circumstances.

“‘Patriot’ reveals less about Navalny’s politics than it does about his fundamental decency, his wry sense of humor and his (mostly) cheery stoicism under conditions that would flatten a lesser person,” the New York Times said.

“It is important to publish these kinds of books,” said Caroline Babulle, at the book’s French publishers Robert Laffont, which has printed a first run of 60,000 copies.

“Patriot”, which had a worldwide run of several hundred thousand copies, topped Amazon.com’s list of bestselling books on Tuesday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

The wife of late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny said on Thursday that investigators had told her his death in an Arctic prison colony in February was caused by a “combination of diseases” – a finding she rejected as preposterous.

Yulia Navalnaya said she would demand a criminal investigation of her husband’s death, which she considers to be murder, and that Navalny’s team would continue to conduct its own probe.

Navalny, 47, died suddenly on Feb. 16, depriving the Russian opposition of its most charismatic and popular leader. He had been serving sentences totalling more than 30 years on charges he said were rigged in order to silence his criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin has strongly rejected his supporters’ accusation that Putin had him murdered.

Posting on social media, Yulia Navalnaya published a copy of a three-page official letter she received last week stating there were no criminal circumstances surrounding her husband’s death and therefore no grounds to open an investigation.

The letter was signed by Alexander Varapayev, the same investigative official who, according to Navalnaya, initially refused to hand over her husband’s body to his mother unless she agreed to have him buried in secret – a demand she rejected.

The letter said Navalny had fallen ill suddenly while walking in a prison yard, and was taken to a medical unit where staff tried unsuccessfully to save him with “indirect heart massage and artificial respiration”. An emergency team was sent for, but was also unable to revive him.

Navalnaya said that version was a lie and a cover-up.

“We know very well that when Alexei became ill, he was taken not to the medical unit, but back to the punishment cell. That he was dying there, alone. That he was taken to the medical unit already unconscious. That in the last minutes before his death he complained of acute pain in his stomach. Why is all this not in the resolution of the Investigative Committee?” she wrote.

She did not say how she and her husband’s supporters had established the sequence of events she described.

LIST OF DISEASES

The official letter said the cause of Navalny’s death was a “combination of diseases” which it presented as a long list, ranging from hypertension and pancreatitis to damage to his vertebrae and the presence of herpes virus in his lungs and spleen.

It said the trigger for his death was a critical increase in blood pressure that had upset the rhythm of his heart and overloaded the pressure in its chambers.

Navalnaya said “every third person in Russia” had chronic diseases of the kind listed by the report, and “people don’t die suddenly from something like that in the space of an hour”. She also challenged the diagnosis of heart arrhythmia.

“Tell me, how did you discover this arrhythmia during the autopsy? Heart rhythm disturbances cannot be determined posthumously, and during his lifetime Alexei did not have any heart diseases,” she said.

She said Navalny had been lively and cheerful when he appeared by video link at a court hearing on the eve of his death. And if he had really been suffering from so many diseases, she demanded, then “why was such a sick person sent to a punishment cell and kept there for months?”

Navalnaya demanded the opening of a criminal case, though she said there would be no investigation as long as Putin remained in power.

“Therefore, we will continue to investigate ourselves,” she wrote, urging prison staff and officials to contact her team confidentially and promising to pay for any new information.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Police officers walk past a balloon seller as they control a street during an unsanctioned rally in front of the Russian General Prosecution building in Moscow. The Russian prosecutor general’s office has declared The Moscow Times newspaper to be an “undesirable organization.” The designation means the newspaper popular with those in Russia’s expatriate community must stop any work in Russia.
| Photo Credit: AP

The Russian prosecutor general’s office on July 10 declared The Moscow Times, an online newspaper popular among Russia’s expatriate community, as an “undesirable organization.”

The designation comes amid a crackdown on critical news media and the opposition. It means the newspaper must stop any work in Russia and it subjects any Russian who cooperates with the paper to up to five years in prison.

It is a more severe measure than the “foreign agent” designation applied to the news outlet in November, which subjects individuals and organizations to increased financial scrutiny and requires any of their public material to prominently include notice of being declared a foreign agent.

The Moscow Times already moved its editorial operations out of Russia in 2022 after the passage of a law imposing stiff penalties for material regarded as discrediting the Russian military and its war in Ukraine.

It publishes in English and in Russian, but its Russian-language site was blocked in Russia several months after the Ukraine war began.

In an editors’ note on the decision, the newspaper said “The labelling of The Moscow Times as ‘undesirable’ is the latest of many efforts to suppress our reporting on the truth in Russia and its war in Ukraine. … This designation will make it even more difficult for us to do our jobs, putting reporters and fixers inside Russia at risk of criminal prosecution and making sources even more hesitant to speak to us.

“We refuse to give in to this pressure. We refuse to be silenced,” the newspaper said.

The publication began in 1992 as a daily print paper distributed for free in restaurants, hotels and other locations popular with expatriates, whose presence in Moscow was soaring after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It later reduced its print edition to weekly, then became online only in 2017.

Russia in recent years has methodically targeted people and organizations critical of the Kremlin, branding many as “foreign agents” and some as “undesirable.” Other news outlets declared as undesirable include the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov won a Nobel Peace Prize, and the online news site Meduza.

Russia also has imprisoned prominent opposition figures including anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who was President Vladimir Putin’s most persistent domestic foe, and dissidents Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin.

Another Russian journalist has been detained in Russia for “extremism”, accused of making videos for the team of late dissident Alexei Navalny, the Associated Press international news agency said on Sunday.

Sergei Karelin, who has worked for the AP, is the second journalist arrested over such allegations after Konstantin Gabov, who occasionally worked for Reuters news agency and was detained on Saturday.

“The Associated Press is very concerned by the detention of Russian video journalist Sergei Karelin,” the agency told AFP. “We are seeking additional information.”

Gabov, who according to media reports also worked for Russian television channels Moskva 24 and MIR as well as Belarusian news agency Belsat, will remain in pre-trial detention until at least June 27, the courts’ press service said on Telegram.

Karelin and Gabov are accused of helping to prepare videos to be published on the YouTube channel NavalnyLIVE, a platform used by Navalny’s team, the courts said.

Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, died in murky circumstances in an Arctic prison in February.

His movement is designated as “extremist”, exposing its staff and supporters to prosecution.

Most of Navalny’s allies are in exile or serving lengthy prison sentences.

The Russian authorities have in recent months stepped up the pressure on independent and foreign media in a concerted effort to silence dissident voices following the offensive against Ukraine.

In March, photographer Antonina Kravtsova was also held on “extremism” accusations after frequently covering Navalny’s trials for SOTAvision, one of few media organisations documenting political crackdowns in Russia and considered a “foreign agent” by the authorities.

Sergei Mingazov, a Russian journalist working for the Russian version of Forbes media, was detained on Friday and accused of spreading “false information” about army abuses in Ukraine.

Other jailed journalists include Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who faces spying claims that he and the US authorities reject.

Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who works for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been behind bars since October for not registering as a “foreign agent” as required by the authorities.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Centre releases disaster relief funds for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu

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Over 140 hectares gutted in Uttarakhand forest fires

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INDIA bloc plans five Prime Ministers in five years, says PM Modi

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Russia renews attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector as Kyiv launches drones at southern Russia

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U.S. intelligence believes Putin probably didn’t order Navalny to be killed: Report

U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably didn’t order opposition politician Alexei Navalny killed at an Arctic prison camp in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Mr. Navalny, 47 when he died, was Mr. Putin’s fiercest domestic critic. 

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IPL-17: LSG vs RR | Samson, Jurel ace the chase as Royals pull further away

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People lay flowers at the grave of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny following his funeral at the Borisovskoye cemetery in Moscow, Russia, March 1, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably didn’t order opposition politician Alexei Navalny killed at an Arctic prison camp in February, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Mr. Navalny, 47 when he died, was Mr. Putin’s fiercest domestic critic. His allies, branded extremists by the authorities, accused Mr. Putin of having him murdered and have said they will provide proof to back their allegation.

The Kremlin has denied any state involvement. Last month, Mr. Putin called Mr. Navalny’s demise “sad” and said he had been ready to hand the jailed politician over to the West in a prisoner exchange provided Mr. Navalny never return to Russia. Mr. Navalny’s allies said such talks had been under way.

The Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, said on Saturday that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Mr. Putin probably didn’t order Navalny to be killed in February.

It said Washington had not absolved the Russian leader of overall responsibility for Mr. Navalny’s death however, given the opposition politician had been targeted by Russian authorities for years, jailed on charges the West said were politically motivated, and had been poisoned in 2020 with a nerve agent.

The Kremlin denies state involvement in the 2020 poisoning.

Reuters could not independently verify the Journal report, which cited sources as saying the finding had been “broadly accepted within the intelligence community and shared by several agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department’s intelligence unit.”

The U.S. assessment was based on a range of information, including some classified intelligence, and an analysis of public facts, including the timing of Mr. Navalny’s death and how it overshadowed Mr. Putin’s re-election in March, the paper cited some of its sources as saying.

It cited Leonid Volkov, a senior Navalny aide, as calling the U.S. findings naive and ridiculous.

“A third man has been detained in a bribery case involving one of Russia’s most senior defence officials,” Moscow’s court service said on April 25.

It said businessman Alexander Fomin is suspected of paying bribes to Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov, who was detained on April 24, as well as Mr. Ivanov’s associate, Sergei Borodin. All of the men are to remain in custody until at least June 23.

“It is rare for such a high-ranking official to be accused of a crime in Russia. Mr. Ivanov, an ally of Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, was jailed pending an investigation and trial on charges of bribery,” court officials said in a statement. He was in charge of military construction projects and was previously accused of living a lavish lifestyle in anti-corruption investigations conducted by the team of late Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny. It is unclear what sparked the decision to charge him with bribery.

Mr. Ivanov (48) was sanctioned by both the United States and European Union in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on April 24 that the construction projects that were overseen by Mr. Ivanov will continue.

Moscow’s court service said Alexander and Borodin contributed to Mr. Ivanov receiving a “particularly large bribe” — an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison. As part of the case against Alexander and the Deputy Minister, the courts service added that Alexander did not pay for goods, work and services related to repairing and reconstructing buildings.

Russian state news agency Tass reported on Wednesday that a Moscow businessman whose company is involved in construction gave testimony which incriminated the Deputy Defence Minister. Tass did not name the individual who gave the evidence, but public records and Russian newspapers say that Alexander Fomin owns half of the company, called Olimpsitistroy.

In 2021, Mr. Ivanov awarded Alexander and the co-owner of Olimpsitistroy a state award called For Merit to the Fatherland for building medical centers, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.

According to a court statement on Wednesday, investigators told the judge that Mr. Ivanov conspired with third parties to receive a bribe in the form of unspecified property services “during contracting and subcontracting work for the needs of the Ministry of Defence.”

Mr. Ivanov’s lawyer, Murad Musayev, told the state news agency Tass on Wednesday that his client is accused of “taking a bribe in the form of free construction and repair work on supposedly his personal properties,” and in turn providing “assistance to companies that were contractors for the Defence Ministry.”

Another lawyer, Denis Baluyev, was quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti as saying that Mr. Ivanov maintains his innocence. Mr. Baluyev told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the authorities froze Mr. Ivanov’s bank accounts and seized his real estate.

According to the Defence Ministry’s website, Mr. Ivanov was appointed in 2016 by a Presidential decree. He oversaw property management, housing and medical support for the military, as well as construction projects.

RIA Novosti quoted Mr. Peskov as saying that Mr. Shoigu and Mr. Putin were informed of Mr. Ivanov’s arrest, which comes as Moscow’s war in Ukraine grinds through its third year.

Independent Russian news outlets reported on Wednesday that the bribery charges were intended to hide more serious charges of treason and avoid scandal, citing two unidentified sources close to the Federal Security Service, or FSB.

Mr. Peskov dismissed the suggestion and described the reports as speculation. “There are a lot of rumors. We need to rely on official information,” he told journalists. Mr. Musayev, Mr. Ivanov’s lawyer, also denied any other charges, telling RIA Novosti that Mr. Ivanov faced only bribery allegations.

Before his arrest, Mr. Ivanov was seen attending a meeting with Mr. Shoigu and other top military brass. The move against Mr. Ivanov came nearly a month after Mr. Putin called on the FSB to “keep up a systemic anti-corruption effort” and pay special attention to state defence procurement.

Russian media reported that Mr. Ivanov oversaw some of the construction in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that was devastated by bombardment and occupied by Russian forces early in the war.

Zvezda, the official TV channel of the Russian military, reported in summer 2022 that the Ministry was building an entire residential block in Mariupol and showed Mr. Ivanov inspecting construction sites and newly erected buildings.

That same year, the team of Opposition leader Navalny alleged Mr. Ivanov and his family had been enjoying luxurious trips abroad, lavish parties and owned elite real estate. The activists also alleged that Mr. Ivanov’s wife, Svetlana, divorced him in 2022 to avoid sanctions and continued living a lavish lifestyle. Few high-level officials have been prosecuted in Russia.

In April 2023, former Deputy Culture Minister Olga Yarilova was arrested and charged with embezzling more than 200 million rubles ($2.2 million). Olga, who held her post from 2018 to 2022, is on trial and facing a possible seven-year jail term.

Former Economics Minister Alexei Ulyukayev received an eight-year prison sentence in 2017 for accepting a $2 million bribe from one of Mr. Putin’s top associates. The high-profile trial was widely seen as part of infighting between Kremlin clans. Ulyukayev, now 68, was granted early release from prison in May 2022.