Navalny’s Return Puts the Russian Regime in a Dilemma

Alexei Navalny makes a heart gesture to his wife as his sentence is read during his trial. Source.

The recent arrest of Russian political dissident Alexei Navalny promises to be the next chapter in the tumultuous relationship between Russia and the West, and could have enormous ramifications for the future of the Russian Federation by placing them in an uncertain position both diplomatically and economically.

Navalny has run for office in the past against the ruling United Russia party, which is backed by President Vladimir Putin. Navalny has been convicted for embezzlement on charges widely considered to be politically motivated in both 2013 and 2014, which prevented him from running in Russia’s 2018 presidential election. 

Despite being disbarred politically, Navalny has become one of the most effective and outspoken critics of the Russian government, utilizing social media platforms such as YouTube and Twitter where he has millions of subscribers and followers. A Navalny-narrated documentary in 2017 that accused Russian Prime Minister Medvedev of embezzling $1.2 billion led to mass protests, with over a thousand protestors detained in Moscow. 

In 2020, Navalny fell severely ill on a flight between Tomsk and Moscow, and was flown to Germany for treatment. The German government confirmed he had been poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent, the same compound used to poison Russian defector Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom in 2018. Investigative journalists from Bellingcat, in cooperation with CNN, have implicated Russian federal agents in Navalny’s poisoning.

Navalny returned to Russia last week after recovering from the poisoning and was jailed upon arrival. This jailing immediately led to widespread protests in Russia, with 40,000 gathering in Moscow alone. The government has cracked down on many of these protests, engaging in physical abuse and detaining large numbers of protestors. 

After a trial on February 3rd in which Navalny continued to criticize Putin, ridiculing him as the “poisoner of underpants,” he was sentenced to over two years in a prison labor camp for allegedly missing parole meetings after his 2014 embezzlement convictions. This has caused further protests in Russia, and resulted in a severe civil rights crackdown that has caused thousands to be detained for speaking out against the government both at protests and on social media.

Though Russia claims to be a republic, these events are the latest in a long line of transgressions against democratic institutions by Putin. There has been imprisonment of political opponents, severe limitations on freedom of speech through threats of extortion and harm, and manipulated elections. Despite this, the Russian public still views Putin and his strong-arm foreign policies extremely favorably, with his approval rating having been over 80% for most of the last decade.

It is for these reasons that Navalny’s appeal is so dangerous to Putin and his allies. His ability to expose the corruption of the government could swing public opinion against them, costing Putin one of his greatest assets - his widespread popularity among the Russian public.

Foreign reactions from Western democracies in response to Navalny’s arrest have called for his immediate release, putting enormous pressure on the Russian government by forcing them to choose between allowing one of their most effective critics to walk free and organize against their regime, or keeping him imprisoned and facing the risk of increased sanctions and diplomatic pressure by Western democracies. 

The previous round of sanctions for Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 are still being felt, with some estimates putting the impact of these prior sanctions at 6% of the entire Russian economy. With the current reality of a COVID-induced economic recession, the Russian government finds itself in a precarious position where they must balance the risk of releasing Nalvany and allowing him to organize protests, versus the economic consequences and metaphorical martyrdom of sending him to serve out his prison sentence