Who was Alexei Navalny? Everything You Need to Know

Quick Facts

Also Known As: Alexei Anatolievich Navalny

Died At Age: 47

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Yulia Navalnaya (m. 2000)

children: Daria Navalnaya, Zahar Navalny

Born Country: Russia

Lawyers Russian Men

Height: 6'3" (190 cm), 6'3" Males

Died on: February 16, 2024

place of death: Kharp, Russia

Ancestry: Ukrainian Russian

Notable Alumni: Peoples' Friendship University Of Russia, Finance University Under The Government Of The Russian Federation

More Facts

education: Finance University Under The Government Of The Russian Federation, Peoples' Friendship University Of Russia

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Childhood & Early Life

Alexei Anatolievich Navalny was born on 4 June 1976, in Butyn, a town located close to the city of Moscow, Russia. His father, Anatoly Anatolievich Navalny, a retired military officer, now runs a basket-weaving factory in Kobyakovo along with his wife Lyudmila Navalnaya.

Born the elder of his parents’ two children, he has a younger brother called Oleg Navalny. Because of their father’s military service, they spent their early years moving from one garrison town to other, studying in different schools.

In 1993, he entered Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, from where he earned his legal degree in 1998. In the same year, he began his career in law. Later in 2001, he earned his degree in economics from Finance Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation.

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Joining Politics

In 2000, when a law was enacted raising the electoral threshold for State Duma elections, Navalny felt that it was detrimental to the interests of parties like Yabloko and Union of Right Forces. Although he was not very fond of either, he joined the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko.

In 2001, he was listed as a member of the Yabloko party. Thereupon, he quickly made a position for himself, being elected to Moscow regional council in 2002, heading Moscow subdivision of the election campaign for the December parliamentary election in 2003.

In 2004, he became the deputy chief of the Moscow branch of Yabloko and founded the Muscovite protection committee. Consisting of more than 100 initiative groups, the committee opposed infill development, preventing many constructions harmful to local residents.

In 2005, he became a member of Social Council of Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow.

On 23 June 2007, he co-founded a new political movement called ‘The People’ with the aim of establishing democracy and to fight for the rights of the ethnic Russians. Shortly after that, he retired as the deputy chief of the Moscow branch of the Yabloko party.

Fighting Corruption

In 2008, Navalny founded ‘Union of Minority Shareholders’ and quickly emerged as an activist shareholder, investing around 300,000 rubles on stocks of five oil and gas companies. Eventually, he published proofs that many state corporations like Transneft were misappropriating funds. The work earned him his first public recognition.

In 2010, he launched his RosPil project, aimed at identifying cases of fraud or even unfair competitions in the public procurement system. Very soon, their team of lawyers began detecting unfair or corrupt practices, successfully challenging them in the courts and having them negated.

In 2011, he created the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which grew into the biggest independent organization fighting against corruption, successfully investigating into official high-handedness and fraud. Also, in the same year, he launched RosYama, which enabled private individuals not only to report about road conditions, but also to track the government’s responses.

International Recognition

In 2011, Alexei Navalny started a major political campaign, urging voters not to vote for ‘United Russia’ in the upcoming parliamentary election. It gained nationwide support, as a result of which the ruling party resorted to unfair means.

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As United Russia won the election, massive protests began to erupt all over the country, resulting in many arrests. Navalny was arrested on December 5, 2011 and produced in court, ultimately being sentenced with fifteen days prison term. It enhanced his popularity across the globe.

In May 2012, he started organizing massive rallies when Vladimir Putin was reelected as president in what he termed as a fraudulent election. On May 8, he was once again arrested and sentenced to prison for 15 days, prompting the Amnesty International to designate him as ‘Prisoner of Conscience’.

In 2013, he decided to participate in the mayoral election for Moscow, registering himself as a mayoral candidate on July 17. On July 18, he was arrested and sentenced to five years of imprisonment allegedly for defrauding Russian state enterprise Kirovles, but was soon released on bail.

To negate his chance of winning the 2013 mayoral election, a systematic campaign was started against him. In spite of that, he garnered 27.24% votes. Shortly after that, he joined ‘The People Alliance’, which in 2014 was registered as Progress Party.

In 2014, he took his campaign against corruption to a new level, as a result of which Navalny and his brother were implicated in a new case. Navalny was put under three and a half years of house arrest and his brother was sent to penal colony for the same period.

Presidential Election

On 13 December 2016, Navalny announced that he would run for the post of the Russian president in the 2018 presidential election. Very soon, cases against him, which were earlier suspended, were opened and Central Election Commission refused to register him, citing his previous conviction in the Kirovles case.

Unable to contest, he now led protests marches, urging people to boycott the election. He was detained several times before being arrested in May 2018 and sentenced to 30 days imprisonment for organizing illegal demonstrations.

In July 2019, prior to the Moscow city Duma election, Navalny was arrested once again, and sentenced to imprisonment for one month. On 28 July 2019, while undergoing his prison term, he was hospitalized with severe damage to his eyes and skin.

Although the hospital diagnosed it as an allergy and sent him back to the prison, it was disputed by his personal physician, who believes that the problem arose out of chemical reaction. However, such incidents cannot deter Navalny, who continues to carry on his crusade against corruption.

Imprisonment and Death

On August 20, 2020, Alexei Navalny fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow and was hospitalized at Emergency City Clinical Hospital No. 1 in Omsk after the plane made an emergency landing. He was placed in a coma and put on a ventilator, with doctors suspecting poisoning. A medical evacuation plane transported him to Germany for treatment at the Charité Hospital in Berlin.

On August 24, 2020, German doctors confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with a cholinesterase inhibitor. He was discharged from the hospital on September 23, 2020, after significant improvement. Investigations later revealed that the poison had been placed on his clothing, specifically his underwear, and that his survival was due to the emergency landing and swift medical response on the runway.

Navalny returned to Russia on January 17, 2021, aboard Pobeda Airlines flight DP936. Though the flight was scheduled to land at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, it was diverted to Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Navalny was detained at passport control.

On February 2, 2021, a Moscow court sentenced him to 2.5 years in a corrective labor colony. On March 22, 2022, he was convicted of contempt of court and embezzlement and received a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. By mid-June 2022, he was transferred to IK-6, a maximum-security facility in Melekhovo, Vladimir Oblast.

On February 16, 2024, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service announced that Navalny had died in prison in Yamalo-Nenets, Western Siberia, after reportedly feeling unwell following a walk that morning.

Major Work

Alexei Navalny was best known as the founder of the non-profit organization, Anti-Corruption Foundation. Launched in 2011 and funded by ordinary citizens, it investigates and exposes corruption among high ranking officials.

Awards & Achievements

In 2010, Navalny became a World Fellow at Yale University's World Fellows Program. Other than that, he has also been honored by many national and international publications, including ‘Vedomosti’ and ‘Foreign Policy.’

Family & Personal Life

In 2000, he married Yulia Navalnaya, with whom he has two children, a daughter named Daria Navalnaya and a son named Zahar Navalny.

Alexei Navalny Biography