Alexei Navalny’s Interview with The Economist

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader

has reportedly died in one of the country’s harshest jails

near the Arctic Circle

The Economist interviewed Navalny in 2017,

ahead of Russia’s 2018 presidential election

which he was later barred from contesting

Journalists worked out that I spent every fifth day of my

election campaign in prison, behind bars

And this, of course, describes very well what is happening in Russian politics

Unfortunately, it doesn’t give me the slightest joy or any pleasure

but this has already become routine in my life

But you should be ready for this

if you are engaged in opposition fighting in an authoritarian country

And this is emotionally interesting because, on the one hand

you find yourself in court,

and you understand that it is completely illegal to imprison you for 20 days

And this is certainly very annoying because

you’re seeing a mockery of justice, you’re seeing these false statements

It really feels like a theatre of the absurd

But on the other hand, oddly enough, you always feel some kind of support

The police are taking you to jail

and they say, “well done!”

Your jailers are saying

“let’s find a place that doesn’t have a camera so we can take pictures with you”

It’s a very interesting experience when you see that you get support

even from people who, in theory, shouldn’t support you in any way

Because the Kremlin is constantly trying

to prove that the opposition movement in Russia is a narrow group,

a group of very educated liberals

“these people are so privileged, they have nothing to do so they go into opposition”

For my part, I see, including when I’m in prison,

that ordinary people support our ideas

His [Putin’s] goal is very simple: he wants to be the emperor,

tsar, autocrat of Russia for life

And to be honest, I have little doubt that they

are creating a new feudal system and they actually have the idea

in their heads of transferring power simply by inheritance

So de facto we already have a new Putin aristocracy,

Putin’s new feudal lords

Therefore, in this situation and in this political environment, in this political reality,

I see my place as a person who is fighting with this,

who is engaged in organisational activities, who is trying to unite

people around me who want to oppose it

There are a lot of people like this, many more than is commonly believed

They are now disconnected from the political system

But there are a lot of these people

I’m fighting for a leadership position to lead these people