Thorn in the side of Russian regime who Putin cannot even bring himself to mention by name
Alexei Navalny has been a thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin for a decade. A political activist and investigative journalist, Mr Navalny uses a vast online platform to organise protests and expose corruption among the Russian elite. He has made powerful enemies and been tried, jailed and attacked repeatedly. A lawyer by training, he came to the fore in 2011 during mass protests against Putin’s return as president after four years as prime minister. He branded the ruling party a group of “crooks and thieves”, a slogan taken up by his followers. Putin refuses to mention his name in public, just “the person you mentioned” – among other euphemisms.
Mr Navalny, 44, has twice sought high office, coming second to Kremlinbacked candidate Sergei Sobyanin for Moscow mayor in a vote tainted by fraud, he claimed. Then he announced he would stand against Putin for president in 2018 but he was kept off the ballot because of a “criminal conviction”. Despite this, he and his campaigners, lawyers and researchers continue to scrutinise Russian politics.
In 2017, thousands of Russians protested in the streets after a slickly produced Youtube video alleged Dmitry Medvedev, then prime minister, was concealing a billiondollar property empire.
Mr Navalry has been in receipt of violent threats: from Viktor Zolotov, head of Russia’s national guard, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, a catering business millionaire with close links to Putin. Prigozhin successfully sued Mr
Navalny’s foundation for alleging lunches his firm supplied to schools were making children sick.
In 2017, he was left partially blind in one eye after green dye was thrown in his face outside his Moscow office. While in jail, he spent time in a prison hospital after an “allergic reaction”, despite him saying he has no allergies.
Mr Navalny’s Youtube channel has almost four million subscribers.