Intelligence Studies Review

By Dr. Kevin Riehle

The predominant theme in the West since Aleksei Navalny’s death on 16 February 2024 is that Vladimir Putin killed him. His wife, who is understandably grieved and angry, has led that narrative. But is it possible that there is an alternative analysis? Maybe by persisting in that theme, the West is covering for a stupid mistake that Putin’s people made. Navalny’s death has actually done more harm to Putin’s message than it helped it.

When Navalny returned to Russia in 2021 after receiving treatment for a botched Federal Security Service (FSB) assassination attempt, the Russian government was forced to do something about him. Unlike other dissidents who left Russia and remained in external exile, Navalny had the courage to return to Russia and become a symbol of opposition to Putin. His return was at least partially to show the Russian people that he was not beholden to any Western support and was a real Russian. Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, tried to counter that message. Soon after Navalny’s arrest, Naryshkin claimed that Navalny was a tool of the West, but that the Russian state would not allow him to become a “sacred sacrifice.” Navalny’s return belied that message.

Navalny’s return may have caught the Putin regime by surprise, and it had to do something to counter his status as a symbol. The response was to arrest him. That offered the Putin regime an avenue for showing the Russian people that Navalny was a failed oppositionist. When Navalny continued to communicate his message even from prison, the regime moved him to a remote, far north prison where his communication could be more controlled and where he could not persist as an opposition figure head. The move also sent a message that resonated with Russian people more than anyone else—Navalny was sent to Siberia to rot.

The regime then used his appearances there to further its message of Navalny as a defeated figure, now looking increasingly emaciated. In prison, he could be a potent symbol to the Russian people that opposition does not pay, the message the Putin regime wanted to portray.

But then, he died. Maybe he was just too weakened by his imprisonment, or maybe an overeager prison official went too far in a harsh interrogation. How he died is still a mystery. But in death, Navalny was transformed from a symbol of defeat into a martyr for a cause, the very “sacred sacrifice” Naryshkin claimed he was not. The Russian government tried to prevent his mother from holding a public funeral, but that presented a terrible optic. Navalny’s funeral on 1 March reinforced the exact image the Putin regime did NOT want to show.

The funeral belied the Putin regime’s claim the Navalny was a nobody who had no following. The hundreds of thousands of people watching the funeral, either in person or online, showed that, despite Putin’s refusal to even utter his name, Navalny was popular inside Russia. Comments during the live streamed funeral rolled in from across Russia, with people noting the names of the cities where they lived. Thousands of people expressed support for Navalny’s family and for his cause. Comments included statements like “Russia without Putin,” “Russia will be free,” “We will not forget,” “No to war,” and Navalny’s own statement, “Never give up.”

The Putin regime likely knew that this would happen from its polling of the Russian population. The Federal Protective Service (FSO) conducts polls inside Russia to gauge the mood of the people. Although Russia is far from a democracy, Putin does care about whether he is popular, or if someone else is more popular than him. The FSO polls are like the evil witch asking, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”

Ironically, just three days after Navalny’s death, Putin honorarily promoted Valeriy Boyarinev, the deputy director of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. Other prison officials were also honoured. But in Russia’s tradition of occasionally honouring people to cover for embarrassing failures, those hasty promotions may have been to maintain the public narrative while masking the public relations disaster that is Navalny’s death.

Despite the regime’s public rhetoric, it knew that Navalny had a following. Keeping him in prison as a symbol of defeat was in the regime’s interest. Killing him and allowing him to become a dead hero was not.

Thus, it is worth asking, did Putin really kill Navalny? Putin certainly did send him to a far north prison camp where he could rot in prison. But the image of a defeated prisoner was more potent for Putin than the spectacle of a funeral for a dead hero. By claiming Putin killed Navalny, the West is giving Putin more credit that he deserves. Putin’s loyal henchmen more than occasionally make stupid mistakes.