https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/23/the-world-must-not-accept-the-jailing-of-alexei-navalny

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[20210123_ldp503]

Palace intrigue
The world must not accept the jailing of Alexei Navalny

It takes courage to expose the corruption of Vladimir Putin's regime

LeadersJan 23rd 2021 edition
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Jan 23rd 2021

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IN A DEMOCRACY the battle for power involves elections, media
skirmishes and the occasional metaphorical stab in the back. In
Russia it is literally a matter of life and death. To oppose
President Vladimir Putin requires not only charisma and clear vision
but also physical stamina and courage. Alexei Navalny possesses these
qualities in abundance.

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The Kremlin has tried hard to neutralise him. Prosecutors have
levelled a series of trumped-up criminal charges against him. State
propagandists have amplified them, and added imaginary calumnies to
the mix. Last year Russia's security services slipped him a nerve
agent in a botched attempt to murder him. Mr Putin no doubt hoped
that after all this Mr Navalny would be scared into permanent exile.
Instead, on January 17th, five months after falling into a coma and
being evacuated to Germany on a stretcher, Mr Navalny boarded a
low-cost airline called Pobeda (Victory) and flew back to Moscow.

He was grabbed at the border, spirited off to a police station and
put on trial there at one minute's notice. The charge was violating
parole--while lying in a German hospital, he had been unable to check
into a police station in Russia. He was found guilty, of course, and
sentenced to 30 days' imprisonment. He awaits a second trial
scheduled for February 2nd that could see him locked up for three and
a half years and possibly much longer.

Yet still he torments his tormentor. On January 19th he released a
two-hour film about Mr Putin's billion-dollar secret palace on the
Black Sea, set on an estate 39 times larger than Monaco, with an
underground ice-hockey rink, a casino and a red-velvet hookah lounge
and dance pole. This was bought with "the biggest bribe in history",
Mr Navalny's team claimed. (The Kremlin denies that the palace
belongs to Mr Putin.) In less than a day the video had clocked up 20m
views on YouTube.

Mr Navalny's conviction has plunged Russia to a new nadir of
lawlessness. In the room where he was tried, there was even a picture
on the wall of the head of Stalin's secret police. The violence
unleashed by the Kremlin on its opponents is a threat not only to Mr
Navalny, but also to ordinary Russians. A kleptocracy and repressive
regime cannot go into reverse and requires new fodder to keep itself
in power. What happens next depends largely on how the population and
the elite respond. A nationwide protest called by Mr Navalny on
January 23rd, ahead of his new trial, will be a critical test.

A lawless Russia is a threat to the outside world, too. Repression at
home is rarely isolated from aggression abroad, as Mr Putin has
repeatedly shown. His arrest of Mr Navalny, who was treated as Angela
Merkel's personal guest while he was in Germany, is a slap in the
face for the German chancellor and the West. It also presents a
challenge to the incoming administration of President Joe Biden who,
unlike his predecessor, sees Mr Putin's Russia as one of the biggest
threats to American security.

Mr Biden's incoming national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, set the
right tone by issuing a sharply worded demand for Mr Navalny's
release within hours of his arrest. But words are not enough. Mr
Biden should lead a coalition to grapple with Russia's corruption and
its Western enablers (see article). It should impose personal
sanctions not only on Mr Putin's cronies and those responsible for
poisoning and jailing Mr Navalny, but also on the much larger number
of corrupt officials and politicians who have laundered or spent
their ill-gotten wealth in the West in the past two decades of Mr
Putin's rule.

Mr Navalny is risking his freedom and his life to stand up to a
brutal, crooked regime. Mr Putin may command an army, the security
services and a nuclear arsenal. But he is still afraid of the truth.
Mr Navalny's courage has captured the world's imagination and put the
Kremlin on the defensive. He deserves support. What becomes of him
matters not only to Russia--a vast, talented country captured by
rapacious ex-spooks--but to the world. #

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition
under the headline "The return"

Reuse this contentThe Trust Project

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