Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was a uniquely charismatic, fearless, and media-savvy critic of Putin’s regime who will be extremely hard to replace, says GZERO’s Alex Kliment. But as beloved as he was internationally for his fearless stance against the country’s strongman leader within Russia, his appeal was somewhat limited to educated elites.
“There was a poll last year that only about 10% of Russians saw Navalny as someone whose activities they approved of about 40 or 50% said they disapproved him Navalny” Kliment says. “And a quarter of Russians had never even heard of him.”In 2020, recall, he was poisoned with a nerve agent in an attack that he blamed on the Kremlin. He later, on camera, tricked a Russian security official into appearing to admit responsibility for the hit.
That may be hard to believe for Western observers who have grown accustomed to grainy videos of Navalny defiantly smiling from behind bars. But it’s a function, Kliment says, of the fact that the Kremlin controls the media. The Kremlin has cracked down on opposition movements like Navalny’s, and many Russians who would be most likely to support him have left Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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