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Here is a look at Russian opposition leader, Kremlin critic and activist Alexey Navalny.
Birth date: June 4, 1976
Birth place: Butyn, Soviet Union
Birth name: Alexey Anatolyevich Navalny (sometimes spelled Alexei, Aleksei)
Father: Anatoly Navalny, former military officer and basket-weaving factory owner
Mother: Lyudmila Navalnaya, basket-weaving factory owner
Marriage: Yulia (Abrosimova) Navalnaya (2000-present)
Children: Daria and Zakhar
Education: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, commercial law, 1998; attended State Finance Academy, 1999-2001
Has been a prominent organizer of street protests and has exposed corruption in Russian government and business via social media, including his LiveJournal blog and RosPil website.
Says that he stands by previous anti-immigration comments considered xenophobic, including deporting Georgians from Russia. Has apologized for the use of derogatory terms.
Is barred from running for political office because of a 2013 conviction. Russian law forbids convicted criminals running for political office.
How Alexey Navalny became the face of opposition in Putin’s Russia (2021)
2000 – Joins Yabloko, the Russian United Democratic Party.
2006 – Participates in the Russian March, a nationalist event.
2007 – Is expelled from Yabloko because of his nationalistic leanings.
2007 – Launches the National Russian Liberation Movement, (known as NAROD, the Russian word for “people”).
2009 – Policy adviser to the governor of the Kirov region.
November 2010 – Blows the whistle on a $4 billion embezzlement scheme at the state-run oil pipeline operator, Transneft, by posting leaked documents on his blog.
December 2010 – Kirov-area open an investigation against him involving a state-owned lumber deal when he was an adviser to the governor.
December 5, 2011 – Takes part in protests following Vladimir Putin’s December 4 election win. Is arrested but is released after 15 days.
2011 – Founds the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). The organization investigates corruption in the Russian government and posts supporting documentation.
December 24, 2011 – Speaks before tens of thousands of pro-reform demonstrators prior to the March 2012 presidential election.
March 6, 2012 – Is arrested along with other protesters after Putin wins a third term as president on March 4, with just under 65% of the vote. Critics question the results amid complaints of voter fraud.
March 20, 2013 – Is indicted, along with entrepreneur Petr Ofitserov, for misappropriating $500,000 in a state-owned lumber deal when he was an adviser to the Kirov region’s governor.
July 18, 2013 – A court in the city of Kirov finds Navalny and Ofitserov guilty of embezzlement. They are sentenced to five and four years in prison respectively. Detained overnight, they are released July 19 pending an appeal. The verdict is followed by public protests.
2013 – Runs unsuccessfully for mayor of Moscow. Comes in second with 27% of the vote.
October 16, 2013 – The five-year prison sentence received July 2013 is reduced to a suspended sentence on appeal.
October 2013 – In a statement from the Russian federal Investigative Committee, Navalny and his brother Oleg Navalny are accused of defrauding the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher’s Russian subsidiary.
February 28, 2014-January 2015 – Under house arrest.
December 30, 2014 – Is found guilty of fraud in the November 2013 case. Receives a suspended sentence of three and a half years. His brother receives a sentence of three and a half years in prison.
February 23, 2016 – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rules that Navalny and Ofitserov were deprived of the right to a fair trial in their 2013 conviction. They are awarded 8,000 Euros for damages, plus additional awards for costs and expenses.
April 27, 2017 – Navalny is splashed in the face with an antiseptic green dye. The attack causes vision damage in one eye.
January 22, 2018 – A Moscow court orders the closure of FBK, which funds Navalny’s activities.
July 29, 2019 – Suffers an “acute allergic reaction” while serving a 30-day sentence in police custody. His July 24 arrest follows a call for demonstrations after the disqualification of opposition candidates for Russian municipal elections. Doctors do not find any signs of poisoning after doing an analysis, Russian News Agency TASS reports.
Poisoning and time in Germany
August 20, 2020 – Feels sick during a return flight to Moscow from the Siberian city of TomskIn and falls into a coma from suspected poisoning, according to spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh. “We assume that Alexey was poisoned with something mixed into [his] tea,” Yarmysh tweets. German NGO The Cinema for Peace Foundation says it is sending a medical plane to Russia in an attempt to evacuate him.
August 21, 2020 – Russian doctors give Navalny’s team permission to move him. He is scheduled for a medical evacuation to travel to a German clinic, according to spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh.
August 22, 2020 – Arrives at the Charité Hospital in Berlin in Germany where an “extensive medical diagnosis” is made.
September 2, 2020 – In a statement, the German government reports that Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group. Novichok was used in a March 2018 attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, in the English cathedral city of Salisbury.
September 7, 2020 – According to a statement released by Charité Hospital, Navalny is out of a medically induced coma.
September 23, 2020 – Is discharged from the hospital, according to a statement released by the Charité Hospital.
December 14, 2020 – Reporting from CNN and investigative group Bellingcat reveals that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) formed an elite team specializing in nerve agents and trailed Navalny for years. Phone and travel records suggest the unit followed Navalny to at least 17 cities since 2017.
December 17, 2020 – At his annual press conference, Putin claims that if Russian special services had wanted to kill Navalny, “they would’ve probably finished it…but in this case, his wife asked me, and I immediately gave the order to let him out of the country to be treated in Germany… This is a trick to attack the leaders [in Russia].” The CNN-Bellingcat investigation is a form of “information warfare” facilitated by foreign special services, he says.
December 21, 2020 – CNN reports that Konstantin Kudryavtsev, an agent who belonged to an elite toxins team in Russia’s FSB, revealed during a debriefing details about how Navalny was poisoned, but didn’t realize he was speaking to Navalny himself.
December 28, 2020 – The Russia Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) accuses Navalny of violating the terms of his probation by failing to show up for scheduled inspections while in Germany and requests that a court replace his suspended sentence with an actual prison term.
December 29, 2020 – Russia’s main investigative body launches a criminal case against Navalny on charges of fraud related to his alleged mishandling of $5 million in donations to FBK and other organizations.
Return to Russia and trial
January 2021 – Russian prison authorities officially request to replace Navalny’s 2014 suspended sentence with a real jail term. The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service says that by staying in Germany, Navalny is violating the terms of his suspended sentence in the so-called Yves Rocher case, which Navalny believes is politically motivated.
January 13, 2021 – Announces on social media that he will return to Russia from Germany on January 17.
January 17, 2021 – Navalny is detained moments after arriving in Moscow following months of treatment in Germany after being poisoned in August 2020. The next day, he is ordered to remain in custody for 30 days during a surprise hearing.
February 2, 2021 – A Moscow court sentences Navalny to prison for more than two and a half years for violating probation terms from 2014 while he was in Germany. The sentence takes into account the 11 months Navalny spent under house arrest. His lawyer says he will appeal the verdict. The sentence prompts protests across the country.
February 20, 2021 – Navalny’s appeal is partially rejected. The judge shortens his sentence by a month and a half, noting the time he spent under house arrest, from December 2014 to February 2015. In a separate hearing at Babushkinsky District Court, he is convicted of defaming World War II veteran Ignat Artemenko, 94, in social media comments made June 2020. Navalny criticized a video broadcast by state TV channel RT, in which prominent figures expressed support for controversial changes to the Russian constitution. The penalty for defamation, a fine, was changed to include potential jail time in December 2020.
February 24, 2021 – According to Reuters, Navalny is stripped of his “prisoner of conscience” status by Amnesty International. The decision was made due to numerous complaints about Navalny’s past xenophobic comments received by the organization.
March 3, 2021 – Navalny’s lawyer Vadim Kobzev tells CNN that Navalny is being held in detention center-3 in Kolchugino in the Vladimir region east of Moscow. Navalny will be held temporarily before being moved to a penal colony.
March 31, 2021 – Navalny, who is imprisoned in penal colony No. 2 in Pokrov, says he is going on a hunger strike to protest against prison officials’ refusal to grant him access to proper medical care.
April 23, 2021 – Navalny announces that he is ending his hunger strike after receiving medical attention.
April 26, 2021 – Moscow’s chief prosecutor freezes Navalny’s political movement by suspending activities at his offices across the country.
April 29, 2021 – Navalny’s network of regional offices for his political movement will be “officially disbanded,” chief of staff Leonid Volkov announces. Volkov says the regional offices will “continue to work as independent social and political movements, but we will not finance them anymore, we will not set tasks for them, but we know that they by themselves will do a great job.”
October 20, 2021 – Navalny is awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
March 22, 2022 – Navalny is sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security jail, according to Tass, after being convicted on fraud charges by the Lefortovo court in Moscow over allegations that he stole from his Anti-Corruption Foundation.
June 14, 2022 – Navalny is relocated to a maximum-security prison in Melekhovo in the Vladimir Region, according to Russia’s state media outlet TASS citing Sergey Yazhan, chairman of the regional public oversight commission.
April 26, 2023 – In comments posted on Twitter, Navalny says he has been accused of committing “terrorist attacks” and the new case will be heard by a military court.
August 4, 2023 – Is sentenced to 19 years in prison on extremism charges, Russian media report. Navalny is already serving sentences totaling 11-and-a-half years in a maximum security facility on fraud and other charges that he says were trumped up.
December 11, 2023 – Lawyers for Navalny say they have lost contact with the jailed Russian opposition leader and his whereabouts are unknown.
The rough conditions inside prison camp where Navalny is being held
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