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Alexei Navalny: “For evil to triumph, all that is needed is for the good guys to remain inactive.”
Photo: DCM Cable News Network Inc.
Poisoned, arrested, convicted - but determined until the end: Despite his poor health, Alexei Navalny continued his resistance against Russian President Vladimir Putin even from prison. According to consistent reports, the opposition politician paid for this fight with his life.
In the event of his murder, the Kremlin opponent left a message in the CNN film "Nawalny." In it he urges his Russian compatriots to remember their strength and not to fall into inaction. »My message is very simple: Don't give up!«
"If they decided to kill me, that means we are incredibly strong," Navalny says in Russian in the video. “Remember, we have great power that is being suppressed by these evil guys. All that is required for evil to triumph is for the good to remain idle. So don’t be passive.”
The death of the opposition politician, who returned to Russia in 2021 after a poison attack despite the threat of imprisonment, caused consternation in many countries. Politicians accused Putin and the Russian justice system of political murder. In Moscow, Navalny's supporters laid flowers at a monument to victims of political repression. In Berlin, individual demonstrators marched in front of the Russian embassy.
“I have my country and my beliefs,” Navalny himself wrote on X in January, three years after his return to Russia. Anyone who wants to stand up for this in Russia must be prepared to sit in solitary confinement if necessary. »Of course I don't like being there. But I will not give up my ideas or my homeland.«
eru/AFP/dpa