4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024The investigative journalist recalls her friend, the fearless Russian activist and opposition leader who laughed in the face of a murderous regimeAlexei Navalny had everything that Putin didn’t have,Navalny was tall, Putin short; Navalny handsome, Putin not so much,Navalny had a fabulous wife; Putin was unsuccessful with his personal life,Navalny could talk to people from all walks of life and inspire them; Putin had to force or pay them to attend his rallies,Navalny was loved by everyone, particularly young Russians; Putin’s chief constituency was women, 64-plus, in small towns and villages.

What people don’t always realise, though, is that all that did not come naturally to Navalny.He worked so hard to be that person.I met him in 2004.After completing my PhD at Harvard, I returned to Moscow and taught political science at the university – the Higher School of Economics.At some point, I invited young leaders and activists of different democratic factions to my flat for a weekly supper – to discuss grassroots politics and collective action.

These kids were in their early 20s, and they were constantly fighting with one another rather than with the Kremlin.Navalny was the oldest among them.My idea was that because we had oligarchical politics in Russia, it was vital for them to learn how to work together, to do canvassing.And that is precisely what we did.Navalny would go around knocking on doors with the others.

And he was so natural – people of different ages, preoccupied with the burdens of their everyday life, listened to him, asked for his advice, and they trusted him.But he had a long way to go.I remember when we had a rally in Moscow in defence of the freedom of speech in 2005.I was looking at Navalny, who was on stage, from the side of the crowd, and I was thinking: wow, he’s such a handsome guy, but he was totally unable to speak to the crowd.He just didn’t have that confidence.

He absolutely taught himself to do that – he never stopped educating himself.During the year he was under house arrest, he read so much political science that he became a real specialist in government and policy.He used to say he hated jogging but was prone to gaining weight, so he forced himself out to run every morning, even in the snow.The big change for him came after 2012 when Putin’s party stole the parliamentary elections, and Putin himself announced that he was returning to the Kremlin for a third term.Before that, the regime was, as we used to say, pretty vegetarian; it didn’t eat people yet.

But then they brought in all sorts of repressive laws, and Navalny was among those who called people to a protest.He got arrested after that and was in jail for two weeks.I came to meet him from jail, and all of a sudden, everybody around me was talking about Navalny as a future president of Russia.In 2013, there was a very strange period when the Kremlin didn’t prevent Navalny from running for mayor of Moscow.They expected him to get some minimal votes and become insolvent as a national politician.

He ran a proper grassroots campaign and well exceeded everyone’s expectations.He had spent nine months as a world fellow at Yale University, and learned a lot from reading about and watching the American party machinery and from studying TV political series such as The Wire and House of Cards.For example, if he was speaking to a crowd in the apartment building courtyard in Moscow he learned to put out chairs for older and disabled people in advance – something unheard of in Russian politics.While in jail, he read Bobby Kennedy’s and Churchill’s memoirs and memoirs of political operatives to learn how to win the elections.He made himself master English to do that.

His wife, Yulia, was very much with him in all of that.I always say that when we talk about Navalny, we talk about two people, Alexei and Yulia.She was always his best adviser.And it was tough; every two or three months, police searched their house, taking away all their electronics, including the ones belonging to their two children.Their apartment was under 24/7 video surveillance from the FSB (successor to the KGB).

They knew they were being watched day and night, even when they were making love.But Yulia always supported him.After Putin poisoned him with novichok in August 2020, Navalny’s return to Russia after recovery in Germany in early 2021 was almost a mythical thing.Everyone had seen him carried by paramedics out of the plane, nearly dead.But he survived and was resurrected.

I imagine Putin was terrified of Navalny turning into an almost biblical figure.Navalny chose to fly back to Moscow from Berlin, where he had been treated for the poisoning for more than five months, by the Russian discount airline called Pobeda (meaning “victory”).Police arrested him even before he crossed a border – so afraid were they of those tens of thousands of people who gathered to meet him on that very cold winter day.Putin had tried to kill him and repeatedly jailed him, and, still, people were taking him as their leader.A year after he was arrested at the airport, I testified to one of the kangaroo courts inside his penal colony.

I testified for two hours as a character witness, trying to convince the judge, a woman, that all these accusations against him were made up, not worth a penny.The procurator was a woman, and the judge was a woman, and they were clearly surprised to see a guy sitting in this labour camp where he was likely going to spend the rest of his life – and see him smiling this wonderful, charming smile and laughing.It was totally incomprehensible for them, that courage.But of course, they realised they didn’t have a choice but to convict him if they wanted to keep their privileges and jobs.He got nine years in jail.

It was the last time I saw him alive,He gave me a hug and I whispered in his ear: “Don’t worry about your parents, we will take care of them,” And then there was another trial when he got 19 years in jail for leading his Anti-Corruption Foundation, which had been declared an extremist organisation,He wrote to me: “Zhenia, do you really think I expected Putin to put me in jail just for three years? I’m going to get out of jail only when Putin dies,”We corresponded extensively when he was in the labour camps.

He was reading accounts of the Soviet-era prisoners in the gulag, including Natan Sharansky.He wrote in one of the letters and in his book, The Patriot – published after his murder in the Arctic penal colony – that he saw no difference in the way political prisoners were treated in the Soviet times from the way they were treated under Putin.He spent almost 300 days in the punishment cells, where he was allowed one book a week and 30 minutes a day to answer letters.There was almost no heat during winter.He was constantly hungry as he was not allowed to buy food.

He wrote to me: “Zhenia, everything is OK.Historical process.Russia goes through it, and we go along with it.We will get there (probably).I am doing fine, and I do not regret anything.

And you should not, and do not be upset.Everything is going to be fine.And even if not, we will be consoled by the fact that we were honest people.”I did realise that there was no chance that Putin would release him.But, also, I knew that all kinds of negotiations were going on with the American and German authorities.

I spoke to Angela Merkel about the possibility of a prisoner exchange for Navalny.I hoped that Putin didn’t dare to kill him.But, of course, I was overly optimistic.The order to kill him was given several months beforehand.That’s why they transferred him to this Arctic penal colony, where there was no control whatsoever.

He was poisoned.We know this now.I had a dream several weeks before he was killed that somehow I managed to get into his labour camp and get him out, and we’re driving in the old Soviet-made car and he asks me: “Zhenia, where are we going?” And I answered: “I don’t know.” And that’s when I woke up.The fact is he was facing his fate with open eyes.

Fear has always been the most essential instrument of the Soviet authorities, and that is true of Putin’s regime.And that’s why Navalny kept repeating, during his trials: “I’m not afraid, and you should not be afraid.” He was trying to show people that nobody is going to liberate our country from this regime but ourselves, but that requires courage on our part.That’s also why he would always laugh at them on video camera whenever he was in court.He smiled the day before he was killed.

Because he wanted to tell people: don’t ever be afraid – those bastards are not worth it.