‘Honour Alexei – don’t give up’

KEEP ON FIGHTING, JAILED POLITICIAN SAYS In life or death, he will influence history, says his lawyer.

Jailed opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza yesterday urged Russians to keep fighting for democracy despite the death of Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison.

Navalny’s death last week sent shockwaves through Russia’s opposition, most of which is either in exile, behind bars, or dead.

“I still cannot comprehend what has happened, rationally or emotionally.

“But if we give in to gloom and despair, that’s exactly what they want. We have no right to do that, we owe it to our fallen comrades,” Kara-Murza said.

A dual Russian and UK citizen, Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in prison last year.

His is the longest known sentence of all of President Vladimir Putin’s jailed critics.

Kara-Murza was also close to Boris Nemtsov, another opposition politician who was killed near the Kremlin in 2015.

And Navalny’s death last week raised fears for remaining Kremlin critics imprisoned in Russia.

Kara-Murza’s own health has deteriorated in prison – he suffers from serious health problems due to two poisonings, according to his lawyers.

But from his prison in Siberia, Kara-Murza professed hope to “make Russia a normal, free European democratic country”.

“Alexei said: don’t give up. It’s impossible to give up,” he said.

Meanwhile, Navalny’s top lawyer, Olga Mikhailova, said in life or in death he would “influence history” as she paid an emotional tribute to the late Russian opposition leader.

Mikhailova, who is arguably the most high-profile member of Navalny’s defence team, had defended the opposition politician for 16 years.

She was often pictured by his side as President Vladimir Putin’s top critic sought to clear his name in a years-long legal tug-of-war with the Kremlin.

Now a target of a criminal probe herself, Mikhailova left Russia in October last year and is applying for asylum in France.

“Alexei Navalny is an amazing, courageous, charismatic politician,” Mikhailova, who looked visibly upset, said at a Russian opposition event in Paris.

“The authorities claim that he is dead. Even if that is so and he was killed, I am sure that he will not only go down in history but will also influence the future course of history,” Mikhailova told several dozen people, her voice sometimes breaking.

Russian authorities said on Friday that Navalny, 47, suddenly died in his Arctic prison. The announcement plunged his supporters worldwide into a state of shock.

Speaking at the event organised by the Russie-Libertés association, Mikhailova spoke of Navalny using the present tense.

“He’s not like regular people. He is an iron man,” she said.

Navalny barely survived a poisoning with the Soviet-designed nerve agent, Novichok, in 2020. Following treatment in Germany, he returned to Russia in 2021 and

was immediately arrested and subsequently jailed.

Mikhailova said she warned the opposition politician against coming back to Russia.–