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Alexi Navalny (Алексей Навальный) is the single most visible face of the anti-Putin opposition movement inside Russia, in all its iterations. He is an attorney, political activist and blogger that gained notoriety through his crusade against Vladimir Putin. Primarily through advocacy on YouTube, where his channel as of this writing exceeds 6.4 million subscribers, Navalny highlights the Russian government’s corruption with particular emphasis on theft of state assets by Vladimir Putin and the circle of oligarchs that stand behind him.
Novichok & Context
In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalized in Germany following an assassination attempt with a novichok nerve agent. Novichok nerve agents are a type of binary chemical weapon. Binary chemical weapons are stored and transported in the form of their less toxic chemical precursors, which makes them harder to identify and detect before use. Novichok nerve agents belong to a class of chemical weapons developed by the USSR starting in the early 1970s. While known to be currently manufactured by several other countries outside the current Russian federation, a similar novichok nerve agent was used for the purpose of assassinating Sergei and Yulia Skripal at their home in England in 2018.
Sergei Skripal was a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double-agent for the United Kingdom’s intelligence services from the 1990s to 2000s. Skripal was arrested outside his home in Moscow in December 2004, before being convicted of high treason against the Russian federation for his espionage activities in service of the British crown.
Though sentenced to thirteen years in prison, he was exchanged for several Russian nationals who were imprisoned for life in the United Kingdom as a part of a spy swap in 2010. While the Russian Federation had since abolished capital punishment, many suspected that Skripal’s assassination was intended as a death sentence carried out from afar. A similar fate befell the former FSB and KGB officer, Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with a polonium isotope six years after he defected to the United Kingdom in the early 2000s with his wife and young son.
And Vladimir Putin’s political rivals have not only died as a result of exposure to chemical weapons or radioactive isotopes. For example, Boris Nemtsov was gunned down while jogging across the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow, in front of the Kremlin walls and near Red Square in February 2015, two days before he was supposed to attend a protest against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Few seriously questioned Putin’s involvement --- particularly in consideration of the fact that Ramzan Kadyrov’s former security chief almost certainly pulled the trigger. A show trial resulted in five Chechens being convicted for Nemstov’s assassination. Beyond Nemtsov, at least Boris Berezovsky, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Sergei Magnitsky, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin all rank among assassinations behind which Putin and his government are the common denominator.
Neither Death Nor Exile
Before his return, one might have expected that Navalny would have availed himself of the opportunity to remain in exile, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, as opposed to the death he narrowly escaped before. Navalny chose neither.
After having recovered from poisoning by the novichok nerve agent, Navalny returned to Russia on January 17, 2021. Navalny was arrested immediately upon return. Navalny’s arrest was met with global outrage. Navalny was convicted of fraud and embezzlement and faced a suspended sentence several years back --- despite the complete lack any credible evidence whatsoever to substantiate the charges. He has been repeatedly arrested, served multiple prison sentences and he has been physically attacked by Putin’s “supporters” on multiple occasions. In one such incident, a green dye commonly used as an antiseptic was thrown in his face while in a Siberian village. Despite being subject to politically motivated fake criminal charges, assault and scores of other insults, Navalny has persevered.
Two days later, on January 19, 2021, Navalny released a video titled Putin’s Palace - History of the world’s largest bribe, which has amassed more than 110,000,000 views since release. The video alleges that a property valued at approximately $1.37 billion (US) located on the Black Sea was built for Putin’s benefit by the circle of oligarchs that form his inner circle. Putin denies ownership. Yet, BBC coverage from 2012 quotes one of Putin’s business associates as having indicated that every last detail of the Bond-villain style palace was designed according to Putin’s precise specifications.
Around the same time, Navalny released a recorded phone conversation in which he pretended to be an FSB officer, debriefing the FSB agent who poisoned him. In the call, the poisoner apologetically states that the “situation would have turned out differently” if Navalny’s plane had not made the emergency landing that enabled Navalny to receive emergency medical treatment. And of course, the situation might further have ended differently had Navalny not received medical care in Germany. According to the call, the FSB agent placed the combined novichok agent inside Navalny’s underwear.
Based on its OSINT investigation, Bellingcat revealed the FSB team of chemical weapons experts behind Navalny’s poisoning who were likewise involved in a series of other murders of Russian political activists. The details of Bellingcat’s investigation are essentially confirmed by the phone call Navalny staged with the FSB operative who poisoned him --- though the FSB told the Associated Press that Navalny’s video was fake.
Following Navalny’s arrest, the largest protests in more than a decade erupted across Russia. Tens of thousands took to the streets in sub-zero temperatures from Moscow to Yakutsk in which over 5,100 people were arrested in at least 109 cities in each of Russia’s eleven time-zones. Every single major city in Russia saw demonstrations in support of Navalny, prompting unprecedented repression tactics by Russian police.
Rather than backing down in response, the pro-Navalny demonstrations have continued to gain momendum and show no sign of dissipating. Masha Gessen explained that:

[Navalny] has . . . show[n] people what they had always known about the Putin regime but had the option of pretending away. He has shown the depth of the regime’s corruption. He has shown that Putin’s secret police carries out murders. With his return to Russia, he has shown the regime’s utter lack of imagination and inability to plan ahead. He has also shown that, contrary to the Kremlin’s assertions and to conventional wisdom among Western Russia-watchers, there is an alternative to Putin.

Now, there is no clear path forward where Putin isn’t the clear loser. If Putin does manage to eventually kill Navalny, Russia may face international retaliation at least as severe as that imposed on Russia after Sergei Magnitsky’s murder. On the other hand, if Putin does not manage to kill Navalny, Putin’s political rivals will continue to be emboldened, as Putin’s power-base ages and fragments. While the point at which domestic and/or international political pressure rises to the level of an existential threat to Putin’s control remains unclear, Navalny has moved Russia in that direction. Putin has never been weaker than he is now.
Geopolitics of Navalny’s Return
The West is not without leverage against Russia, however limited the options may be. Economic sanctions, in particular, are a preferred means of coercion. For example, in 2012 the Obama Administration signed the bipartisan Magnitsky Act into law, which imposed particularized economic sanctions against individuals implicated in Sergei Magnitsky’s murder in a Moscow prison. Thereafter, numerous other countries passed similar legislation. Magnitsky-style sanctions blacklisted named persons from Western banks and financial institutions and prohibited nearly all forms of commercial transaction with Western entities or individuals. In addition, some states have denied visas, restricted travel and frozen and/or seized assets owned or controlled by individuals subject to such sanctions. Russia maintains that these efforts violate Russian sovereignty and interfere with Russia’s judicial system.
So far, the United States and Canada have condemned the Russian government’s actions in relation to Navalny and the protests supporting him. And beyond Magnitsky-style sanctions, other punitive economic measures have been proposed.
In Europe, two camps have emerged along familiar lines: (1) the United Kingdom, France, and Central and Eastern European countries like Poland, Romania and the Baltic states which historically take more hawkish positions toward Russia and Putin’s government; and (2) commercially entangled Western European countries like Germany and Italy, who seek to compartmentalize economic interests and human rights abuses.
For example, France has already urged Germany to scrap the gas pipeline project, Nord Stream 2, with Russia in response to Navalny’s assassination attempt and Russia’s anti-democratic political repression. Yet, while Berlin has condemned the Kremlin and demanded Navalny’s release, Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman Martina Fietz has made clear that the German government has no intention of changing course with respect to future pipeline construction. Likewise, Armin Laschet, who is the new leader of Merkel’s CDU party criticized any attempt to use Nord Stream 2 as a tool of political leverage against Putin’s government, arguing that:

For 50 years, even in the aggressive times of the Cold War, Germany has bought gas from the Soviet Union, now from Russia. The German government is following the right course.

German Economic Minister Peter Altmaier has likewise spoken out against linking Moscow’s political repression to Nord Stream 2, stating that:

Business relationships and business projects that have existed for decades are one thing and serious human rights violations and our reactions to them are another.

Further, calls within the United Kingdom to impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov, who own or control interests in English football teams have been heard throughout Parliament.
But whether it is wise to punish Putin’s Russia for Navalny’s attempted assassination by sanctions or otherwise is another matter entirely. Would imposing sanctions in response to the assassination attempt be nothing more than a symbolic gesture of condemnation? Alternatively, would they be oriented towards actually bringing about democratic reform inside Russia and ending Putin’s regime? Would the symbolic value of imposing sanctions at all be worth the risk that their imposition might wind up strengthening Putin’s hold on power? And of course, would imposing sanctions make Navalny look like the Western puppet that many Putin supporters have alleged?
The theoretical basis for when sanctions should work is straightforward: impose costs greater than whatever benefit the target derives from continuing in the conduct for which he is being sanctioned. And sanctions are typically effective at bringing about the specific harm they are oriented to cause. The problem is that the harm sanctions create almost never translates to actual changes in policy consistent with the sanction’s intent and often bring about unintended consequences.
Russia’s own punitive measures against Ukraine in the mid-2000s provide an illustrative example. Seitz & Zazzaro found that when Russia punished Ukraine for democratic and pro-Western reform by raising gas prices, those affected “were significantly more likely to change their opinions in support of Western-style political and economic systems” --- the exact opposite of what the Kremlin intended. There is more to be said about why sanctions typically fail, but for our purposes it is enough to ask whether the foreseeable risks of unanticipated backlash in response to Western sanctions outweigh any likely benefit.
The Future of Democracy in Russia
Vadim Nikitin and others have argued that Navalny’s decision to return to Russia:

… was an act of such singular courage that it seemed to send a jolt of electricity through the nation’s jaded conscience

It is by no means clear that Navalny will lead Russia to a democratic future. Nor is it clear that Putin will not try --- and succeed --- to assassinate Navalny, again. But this moment belongs to the Russian people, and the United States and Europe would do well to reflect on its significance. For democracy to prevail in Russia, change must arise from within. After all, these protests in support of Navalny mirror those that preceded color revolutions across the Soviet bloc. Likewise, it is worth recalling that six months after Lenin’s return from exile under similar circumstances in Germany, he led the newly formed Soviet Union that emerged from Imperial Russia’s ashes.
What is clear is that external pressure --- whether in the form of sanctions, cancelled business dealings or otherwise --- will reinforce Putin’s control of Russian politics and unite Russians against the West. Several years ago, Navalny was the butt of Russian media late night jokes. Then, even if many Russians themselves supported democratic reform, few saw Navalny as any kind of real transformative figure or alternative to Putin. Now, they take to the streets by the tens of thousands in every major city in Russia across Russia’s eleven time zones to demand his release.