Alexei Navalny has long been a thorn in the side of current Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. He has long been campaigning against corruption and is considered to be Putin’s most prominent opposition. 

After surviving being poisoned with a nerve agent, Navalny is now in prison. Despite being unable to challenge Putin in elections, his voice still holds sway over many Russians, which is why Kremlin considers him a threat. 

Not only does Navalny enjoy a strong following on social media among those in their early 20s, but anti-corruption videos by his campaign group have reached many as well. 

Early life and family 

Navalny was born on June 4, 1976, in Butyn, a village west of Moscow. However, he grew up in Obninsk, a town to the southwest of Moscow. After graduating in law from Moscow’s Friendship of the Peoples University in 1998, Navalny also spent a year in the US as a Yale World Fellow, in 2010. 

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He lives in Moscow with his wife Yulia, and the couple has two children Daria, the daughter studying in the US, and Zakhar, their son.

Poisoned but poised to dethrone Putin 

Navalny’s organization has already been termed as “extremist” in Russia, and he also survived an attempt on his life in August 2020, when he was attacked with the Novichok nerve agent in Siberia. 

However, his team had him flown to Berlin, where Navalny recovered over a few months. Moscow officially stated that Navalny could return to Russia at any time, much like all citizens of the nation. The leader, was nonetheless, detained upon returning.

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This, in turn, sparked mass protests forcing a heavy police reaction. Although Navalny’s party was not allowed to contest the elections, nonetheless, they managed to get under the current government’s skin with a smart voting app that informed voters of candidates most likely to defeat Putin. 

Life behind bars 

On February 2, 2021, a Moscow court found Navalny guilty of violating parole terms of a 2014 fraud case, where he had a suspended sentence. 

He was supposed to regularly report to the police in 2020 but failed to do so due to the time spent recovering from the nerve agent attack. Despite reminding the court of being in a coma for some time, Russian authorities decided to send him to prison. 

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Navalny’s fraud case involves alleged embezzlement from a Russian subsidiary of the French cosmetics firm, Yves Rocher, and the timber firm, Kirovles. His brother Oleg Navalny had been sentenced to jail as well, for three-and-a-half years. 

Now that the court has found Alexei Navalny guilty of embezzlement, prosecutors are seeking a 13-year jail sentence. Navalny has denied this as a politically motivated move, as his foundation raised the amount over the years. Moscow’s most recent decision coincides with Putin’s call to crack down on dissenting voices against the backdrop of Russia invading Ukraine.