Navalny gave us a glimpse of what Russia could be

“I know how easily people are killed in Russia,” Alexey Navalny told me over a decade ago as I interviewed him for a book I was writing. “But in the end, it’s a question of choice. You can keep silent, you can emigrate, or you can stay here and fight,” the Russian democracy activist said.

Navalny — the greatest opponent to Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent memory — paid a steep price for that decision to fight. He died in a prison north of the Arctic Circle, the Russian prison service said on Friday. He was 47. At the moment, we still don’t know the details of his death. But we do know that this is a tragic end to a brave dissident who long understood that his life was at risk.

Navalny made headlines in 2020 after being poisoned with Novichok, a chemical nerve agent, and had been incarcerated since his return to Moscow from Germany in January 2021. He was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.