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Alexei Navalny’s death in a Siberian prison was inevitable, given Vladimir Putin’s turn toward totalitarianism.
In the early years of Putin’s long tenure as the kleptocratic boss of the Kremlin, he was willing to play by the rules in public, even as he subverted those rules behind the scenes. Accepting the term limits set in his country’s constitution, Putin stepped down from the Russian presidency in 2008 to become prime minister, although he still pulled the strings of the puppet who took his place at the top. On the world stage, he initially appeared rational and reasonable.
In 2012, he returned to the presidency and has not given up power since. He built a personality cult and severely tightened the screws on opposition parties and the news media, shifting into open authoritarianism. A long list of anti-Putin activists and journalists began dying in not-so-mysterious ways.
Navalny — fearless in his opposition to the Kremlin regime — was the biggest thorn in Putin’s side. In 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a diabolical nerve agent and was close to death when Putin allowed him to be taken to Germany for treatment. Likely, the Russian leader thought his nemesis would stay in exile where he would be less troublesome, but, in 2021, Navalny returned to Moscow. He was immediately arrested, put on trial and condemned to an indefinite stay in prison.
Navalny continued his activism from behind bars. He may have believed that there was still some tiny space in Russia for a dissenting voice, but Putin abandoned all pretense that any voice but his own can be allowed.
Navalny had to die because his fearlessness was feared by a tyrant who demands a country composed only of acolytes, lackeys and the silent, obedient masses. The Iron Curtain that opened ever so briefly in the 1990s has been shut again in Putin’s Russia.
See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View other syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
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