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Notes -
Navalny is dead.
IMHO it is stupid to seriously discuss the circumstances of his death, especially after Litvinenko, Nemtsov and Navalny himself in 2020. He was killed and many new details that are brought in every hour only prove this more. Prison conditions as a reason are not an excuse, especially when we can see yesterday's Alexei, looking unhealthy, but not at all near death. Prigozhin's fate only further confirms the presumption of guilt.
His death is the right choice for the regime. Navalny posed a much greater threat to them in prison than abroad, and no possible reaction is scary enough to keep him alive. The authorities hope that in the current conditions there will not be a new leader in the opposition who will be able to unite the disparate dissident branches. This is quite likely, especially considering that the deceased did not have a successor (official or informal).
The opposition has lost its head, and the FBK have lost the remnants of their legitimacy. This tragedy for many will be a time of opportunity for others. Surely the next leader is already here, although I hope we wouldn't need to wait too long. In his posthumous address that he recorded for the 2022 film, Alexey asks Russians not to give up and I am sure that no one is going to do this. As a Russian I can say that as long as Russia exists, there will always be people willing to risk their lives for freedom and truth.
I'll confess to being a bit surprised, honestly. As far as being a domestic political threat, Navalny was a non-issue, and in some respects he still had value as a bargaining chip vis-a-vis his western supporters in Europe (and, to a lesser degree, the US).
The question that comes to mind in things like this is 'why now?', as opposed to months ago or some time in the future. I'm not particularly tracking any particular context where Navalny would have been domestically relevant to Russian politics... which doesn't mean there isn't, or that you couldn't have a differing view on what 'relevant' entails, but it could also mean there are other considerations in play.
One thing is the Russian state's medium-term view. There are a number of indications in the annual budgetting and such that Russia is more or less counting on the Ukraine war ending in the next two years or so, with a massive up-front but long-term-unsustainable surge of economic focus on trying to keep the pressure on and present a picture of strength leading up to the next US presidential term, and for some time for negotiations afterwards. In that context, removing Navalny now would let it subside by that point, while negating some potential implications if outsiders thought they could just out-wait Putin and see Navalny in the wings.
Which is another possibility. There are rumors in diplomatic/foreign affairs circles that Putin may not be as healthy as he presents, and that he has some form of old man disease where his tenure may be measured in years, not decades. If this were true, then killing Navalny could be seen as Putin 'cleaning house' so that, when he passes, there's no obvious pro-western potential successor to rise from the inevitable power struggle. It's not a matter of Navalny as a political threat now, but in the future.
There are "elections" in Russia one month from now. Elections are a dangerous time for the power in place, even in Russia, because people can choose this time to protest. Putin just wanted to make it clear that no opposition will be allowed.
I'm not convinced that elections with Navalny dead a month before are going to be a substantially calmer affair than elections with Navalny alive. Nor that Putin would think yet another "sudden" death of someone who was already imprisoned would be a deterrent. He'd be throwing a spark into the crowd, not cowing them.
I give it about 50% "unintentional negligence", 50% "intentional negligence".
Now Dmitri Markov is also dead. The probability thatthey weren't both directly murdered is now very low...
I don't get that impression. There isn't really any speculation or suspicion even from ardent anti-government sources. Based on what I could scrounge up about any possible non-violent death causes, it could have been drugs. He was reported to have overdosed 2 years ago.
Yes he was a drug addict but he had been for years and he dies the same day as Navalny.
And now a pilot who defected to Ukraine and lived in Spain...
Well now that's just sloppy. Surely, if Putin was aiming to show off his power by killing Navalny and a few random minor dissidents exactly a month before the elections, he'd whack the pilot (literally who by the way? You're assuming I know every defector or critic ever by name) on the same day as well, not 4 days earlier?
Markov is known to me to have made exactly one (1) photo that made news as Putin regime criticism. You think Putin has a randomizer with tens of thousands of dissident names, and he just picks a random one when he feels like FSB doesn't have enough to do? I'm sorry, I can't explain your willingness to believe all those deaths have Putin in common in a more charitable way. Large business leaders, sure. Generals, why not (typically done after the war). Virtually no-name defector abroad or a photographer I never heard about? Are you aware there are other big opposition speakers besides Navalny? Why not them?
I think we won't be able to agree but it's still quite weird that 3 people opposed to Putin in a way or another die within a week... what's the probability that it happens at random?
I guess he cannot just choose to kill anyone, there are practical limits. They must have searched for the pilot since he defected.
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