Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian oppositionist in exile, wrote these days that every voter in the upcoming rigged and stolen elections for the president of Russia should write the name - Alexei Navalny on the ballot, instead of choosing a candidate, because there is only one and that is why the elections are a farce . As a sign of reverence for the liquidated fighter for truth, who for more than ten years did to the Kremlin butcher what every dictator, from Putin to Đukanović, has no defense against - ridiculed him in a humorous and devastating way.
Putin's Bastille devoted 45 seconds to Alexei Navalny in its 28-minute news release on Friday evening. The death of the most famous oppositionist was announced almost in passing. Only 28 seconds for the man who was the most serious critic of the criminal regime and the most famous political prisoner in the country. Is there a clearer indicator that Alexei Navalny did not die suddenly, but that he was murdered?!
And didn't we see that in the neighborhood, at the Balkan butcher Milošević's. In 1999, Slavko Ćuruvija was not only a journalist, editor and publisher, but also the fiercest critic of the criminal regime, its most serious opponent, some in the West saw in him an alternative, someone who has the charisma and energy to gather Milošević's opponents and overthrow the dictator. And then, even more brutally than Navalny, without trial or imprisonment, he was killed on the street, in broad daylight. Milosevic's Bastille also announced the news of his murder in the last minutes of its publication, they did not spend even 28 seconds on the liquidation of the leading critic of the regime. Almost all the daily newspapers kept silent about the crime the next morning, only a few of them gave a small piece of news in the lower left corner, on some seventh or eleventh page. This was ordered by the then Serbian Ministry of Truth, which was led by the current president of that country. So that, as in the case of Navalny, with this concealment of the crime it would be shown that the state itself was behind the death.
A murderous state, run by a mafia clique, founded on crimes against its neighbors, usually ends in crimes against its own citizens. And all this in the name of patriotism, defense of sovereignty and the imperial dream - that was Milosevic's Serbia, today it is Putin's Russia.
While Alexei Navalny was just a charismatic lawyer and anti-government activist, who gathers a few thousand supporters at performances in the center of Moscow, he was arrested and tried for a misdemeanor, imprisoned for a few days or, as in 2017, for two weeks. When, however, with the help of the Internet, he began to publish documentary-research stories about the corruption of "crooks and thieves", as described by the Russian regime, and when the views of these contents exceeded hundreds of millions, the Kremlin's communist monster realized that Vladimir Vladimirovich was the devil. took the joke away. This was followed by the first spray attack, which almost destroyed his sight, and then a direct assassination attempt - by Novichok poisoning, a favorite method of the Kremlin's infamous secret services for eliminating political opponents. Navalny survived all that and after recovering in Germany decided to return to his Russia.
Even then, many wondered - why. Why is he going to die?
Similarly, in the spring of 1999, I asked Slavko Ćuruvija, at a dinner in Podgorica, before his return to Belgrade - why are you coming back?! Even while the bombs are falling, which the schizophrenic leader is already using as a justification for a brutal confrontation with opponents. He first laughed, and then said: "Serbia is no more his than mine." I will not agree to that".
That's what Navalny also said. To numerous warnings that a return to Russia could come to his head, he replied: "If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong and we should use that power and not give up," he once told CNN.
The dictator was so afraid of his return that he threatened in advance with a public announcement that, if he returned, Navalny would be immediately arrested. Putin, therefore, like any dictatorial coward, hidden behind special paramilitary and police forces, secret services, billions of looted money, and unscrupulous propaganda, begged Navalny to stay in Berlin, to be a famous immigrant, like dozens of other Russian oppositionists, without any serious contact with the citizens of his country, and that means without any influence on internal conditions and changes in Russia.
Slavko Ćuruvija decided to return in 1999 because he also knew that the villain from Dedinje and his regime could not be overthrown from Podgorica, nor from Brussels and Washington. That there must be a leader and a movement on the ground, in Milosevic's backyard, who will be able to gather people and challenge the dictator. Not long after his return, the state of Serbia killed Ćuruvia. But since the current president of Serbia was then the minister of information and an unwilling accomplice to the crime, the imprisoned Appellate Court of Serbia recently released the suspects and those convicted for the preparation and liquidation of the well-known journalist and publisher. "This verdict is proof that the dark forces of the XNUMXs still rule this country. This is the land of darkness. I'm not alone," Jelena Ćuruvija, Slavko's daughter, said after the court verdict.
The wife of Alexei Navalny, Yuliya, was also silent on Friday, at the Security Conference in Munich, where she received the news of her husband's death.
Pain was etched on her face, writes the New York Times, when she came out and said that she did not know whether to believe the "terrible news" about the death of her imprisoned husband, but that "if it is true, I want Putin and everyone around him to know that they will answer for everything they did to our country, to my family. And that day will come very soon”! She explained how she had a dilemma whether to address the world political elite gathered in Munich or to return to Russia, to her children. "I did what my husband would have done," said Yulija Navalna.
Putin has not announced yet. He hated Navalny so much and feared him so much that he never spoke his name in public. On one occasion, quoting the great Tolstoy, Navalny vividly described the regime in the Kremlin: "The villains who robbed their people gathered, recruited soldiers and judges to provide them with these orgies, and now they are having a feast." It sounds familiar, not only when it comes to Russia, but any hybrid or autocratic regime. From Putin, through Đukanović and Vučić, to Salman and Erdogan.
The BBC correspondent from Moscow, Steve Rosenberg, whom Putin has not yet declared a spy and persona non grata, writes about how citizens of the Russian metropolis come to their "Wall of Pain", a monument erected to the victims of Stalin and communism, bring flowers and light candles, giving a tribute to Navalny. He quotes one of them: “We never thought this could happen”. It's a phrase, says Rosenberg, that I've heard so often from Russians lately.
That's a phrase that I also heard from Slavko Ćuruvija that spring evening in 1999. He believed much less than all of us around him that something so terrible could happen. "He can't go that far, don't worry," he said more to reassure me, he wasn't thinking about himself. It is always the same with any autocrat and bully - you defy him and show no fear, although you are aware that you may pay for it with your life. When Ćuruvija was killed, Serbia sank into the greatest depression and darkness. It seemed as if Milosevic would rule forever. What can we say about Russia and Putin. That death embrace of the dictator and his homeland seems so ominous. While the VVP is alive, Russia has no peace. And the question is when it ends, what awaits that great and important country. Maybe something similar to what we saw and are seeing in Serbia after Milosevic. Dissolution of the state, loss of territory, chaos, tapping in the place and the dominance of criminal values in the 90s.
Alexei Navalny's wife calls on the entire civilized and democratic world in Munich to unite in punishing the regime that kills its best people. Will freedom be able to sing like the slaves sang about it?! A BBC reporter from Moscow graphically concludes the report: “Some of them (people who pay respect to Navalny) told me that, despite the feeling of shock, they still hope for a better future, a different Russia. They cling to those hopes - like a ray of light in the deep darkness.”
Navalny himself believed in the same, dreaming of what he described as "the beautiful Russia of the future."
"Alexey, if you are arrested and end up in prison, or the unthinkable happens and you are killed - what message will you leave to the Russian people", Daniel Roer, a Canadian author, asks Navalny in the final scene of the documentary of the same name (Navalny), which won an Oscar in 2022.
"We don't realize how strong we really are. The only thing necessary for the victory of evil is for good men to do nothing. Therefore, don't be passive," replied Navalny. Hence the message on the pedestal of the monument to Vladimir Vysotsky in Podgorica, which our Russians, who escaped from the tyrant Putin, chose as a place of farewell - on a small piece of cardboard, an admirer of the character and works of Alexei Navalny wrote: NO GIVE UP! Or - No Surrender!
Bonus video:
