I can only imagine it--what I imagine arises from recollections of reading the English translation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1962 novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Arctic circle cold, near-starvation rations, chains, isolation. For months, Navalny's family has been reporting that he's not getting food--he was allowed to buy bowls of oatmeal, but these were only shown to him. He was not allowed to eat them. Did he just die of starvation or was he killed? After all the man has been through--the poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent, the trumped-up legal humiliations, charges, prison--I somehow still thought he'd survive. I hoped for an outcry, a rescue, a return to civilian life; I hoped he'd be up on YouTube again.
What matters is his courage; no matter the consequences, he said what he thought. I hope he will be remembered; I hope his work will be valued; I hope his sacrifice will move Russia toward the beginnings of democracy.
As President Biden said, “He was everything Putin is not. He was brave, he was principled, he was dedicated to building a Russia where rule of law existed and where it applied to everybody.”
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