He is in his forties and has devoted most of his life to publishing materials and investigating the corruption and war crimes of leaders of states.
For the most part - one state.
He was supported by fans, including bitcoins, which allowed his organization to get rich.
He was tried on a completely contrived case for something that is not considered a crime at all in most countries of the world.
He could have escaped, but he didn't.
The whole world followed his process, and therefore you, of course, know who I mean.
His name is Julian Assange.
Now he is being held in a British prison, but this is not certain.
At first he was accused of harassment (not even rape), and now he is completely entangled in law enforcement practices.
And the fact that Great Britain did not hand him over to the United States can only mean that the life and freedom of the world's most famous hacker is still a subject of bargaining between the Old and New Worlds.
The world followed this process, and the world was silent.
Neither Sweden, nor Britain, nor America received any sanctions.
Assange has supporters and opponents - the latter consider him a traitor, and his activities are subversive to the entire Western world and Pax Americana.
But even they, judging by the articles and especially the comments on social networks, divide by ten all the decisions of the judges and indirectly admit that through the Swedish court, the governments of the countries simply solved their problems, forcing the character, who was wrong from their point of view, to shut up.
For the common good, of course.
The parallel with Navalny seems to suggest itself.
But now, when the EU has confirmed another round of sanctions and is preparing to voice them in a week, it becomes obvious that Alexey Anatolyevich is not Assange's Russian counterpart, but his inverted mirror.
On Julian, ten years ago, they tested a new technology that would later turn into MeToo - when a person can be accused and convicted without presenting any evidence.
Navalny got caught on muddy combinations with Yves Rocher - that is, in fact, on what he himself is “fighting” with.
If the US had even a shadow of an opportunity to dig something like this on an albino hacker, they would immediately put it into action.
Assange amazes with his intelligence and calm strength behind his every word.
In 2017, while still at the Ecuadorian Embassy, he gave an interview to Pozner, talking about the pillars on which our civilization stands, while the patriarch of our TV was persistently trying to find out “where the money came from”.
Navalny fully revealed his intellectual level at the trial in the case of insulting a veteran - for the first time he found himself without assistants whispering the correct lines in his ear.
We are seriously discussing a person who quotes a single book on any occasion, and this book is for children.
Finally, the most important difference is that Assange and his WikiLeaks are global.
A person who does not distinguish between corruption in Ghana and in the United States, and therefore opposed himself to the whole world.
In his case, it is impossible to point a finger at the state or organization that will become the beneficiary of his revelations.
Situationally, the publication of this or that material could play into the hands of one of the forces, but the very next day another similar material can destroy this force.
The target of Alexei Navalny's attacks was exclusively the Russian establishment, but now it is Russia and its financial stability in general.
Even while in Germany, he will not write a word about the corruption scandals around the pandemic shaking the elites of Germany and the EU.
Thus, it not only becomes an instrument of forces that benefit from Russia's uncertainty about the future, it offers itself as this instrument.
In 2014, he published an article in The New York Times, "How to Punish Putin," and since then his strategy has not changed much, nor have his goals changed - to become the uncontested punishing sword in the hands of the West.
The person who “decides” who will receive these same sanctions and when the Russian market will shake again.
As now - although no specifics on the sanctions have yet been announced.
Assange is in prison, and the entire world establishment pretends that he does not exist.
In prison and Navalny - representatives of Western countries came to every court session, and his wife, Julia, while these sessions were going on, was in Germany.
None of the FBK * employees commented or explained this strange trip - but the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell announced a new round of sanctions just after Julia returned to Moscow.
Now tremendous power is not behind Alexei alone, but behind his entire family, and the business of “punishing” his native country has finally become a family business.
Navalny undoubtedly knows about Assange, and if he has not yet publicly drawn parallels, it is only because even he understands the ridiculousness of the comparison.
But I'm interested in something completely different: what does Assange think about the “Russian whistleblower”.
In particular, about his ties with the European establishment, to fight with which the British prisoner laid down his life.
Moreover, I have no doubt - somewhere in the arrays of documents processed by WikiLeaks, in the financial reports of Western funds and intelligence agencies, his name is mentioned many times.
*
The Anti-Corruption Foundation is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent, by the decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated 09.10.2019.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.