Thank you, Mr. McFaul. Men like Alexei Navalny come along once in a lifetime, if that; we need more men and women like him today all over the world. I believe Trump and Putin have created a hatred in the souls of many people around the world for themselves. Putin and Trump and others like them have open the eyes of many around the world to see what evil lies in the hearts of men and women like them. Their time is up; it is only a matter of time when one way or another they will be gone, and I think that will be in the not-too-distant future. May Alexei Navalny's memory be a blessing to us all.
Vladimir Putin killed my friend Alexei Navalny this week. There will be a time and place to discuss the politics and how the free world should respond. For now, I want to share a few memories.
The Alexei Navalny I knew was super smart. For me, the sign of a true intellectual is the courage to change your mind. We disagreed about some things he had said in the past, particularly about the Caucasus and Crimea. He listened, and it felt to me he was rethinking some of his earlier statements. But he also pushed back, challenging my commitment to “neoliberalism” in the 1990s. Russia would be better off, he argued, had the West supported social democratic ideas back then. He was right. I changed my mind, too. That’s called learning. He was exceptional at that.
The Alexei I knew was extremely charming. I remember our first meeting at the White House in 2009 when I worked at the National Security Council. My boss at the time, Barack Obama, was known for his charisma. Navalny had Obama-caliber presence. I understood that day why Putin feared him. In a free and fair election, Navalny would have destroyed Putin. Remember that the next time you read a poll in the media about Putin’s popularity.
The Alexei I knew was incredibly funny. When I served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014, we never had a formal meeting, just one chance encounter at an anniversary dinner for the Moscow Times. Navalny understood that any public meetings with me would just fuel conspiracy stories constantly propagated on Putin’s media channels — that the United States was funding his operation. So, instead, we interacted on Twitter, always in a humorous, playful way.
When I once called Russia a “wild country” after a group of paid Putin agitators accosted me on the street, it felt like the whole world, including many in the United States, berated me for my “undiplomatic” outburst. Not Alexei. He asked on Twitter why I did not just belt them, since I had diplomatic immunity.
In another tweet, lampooning Putin’s conspiracy-mongering, Navalny instructed me to meet him at some metro station in the “last wagon” (a common way to meet people during the Soviet days) to do our “secret” business.
The Alexei I knew — and that the world knew — was incredibly brave and firmly committed to his values: fighting Putin’s corruption and trying to liberate his country from totalitarian dictatorship. As a scholar of democratization and a sometimes activist for democracy, I have studied or had the privilege of meeting some of the most courageous freedom fighters in the world. Navalny was one of them — the Mandela of Putin’s Russia. Nelson Mandela survived his three decades of captivity. Navalny tragically did not.
The Alexei I knew was a fierce family man. He was so proud of his daughter, Dasha, when she got into Stanford, where I teach. He and his wife, Yuliya, were just like all the other excited Stanford parents when they dropped Dasha off on campus her first year. And they have watched her grow into a strong, principled, charismatic leader, just like her dad and mom. Of course, Alexei had to watch from afar.
In fact, well before he decided to go back to Russia, it seemed to me his deepest anxiety was not about enduring torture in Putin’s gulag or even facing death, but about being an absentee father and husband. By doing what he thought was right for his country, he knew that he was asking his family to sacrifice a lot, too. And today, that sacrifice has grown so much larger.
Navalny dreamed of a free Russia. Barbaric dictators such as Putin can kill men, but they cannot kill ideas. I do not know when, but I am confident that Navalny’s ideas of freedom will outlive Putin’s ideas of tyranny.
Michael McFaul
Professor of Political Science, Director of Freeman Spogli Institute & Hoover Senior Fellow all at Stanford University.
2nd guessing, maybe Alexey could have done as much countering Putin from abroad ??? Putin will absorb the backlash from Alrxey’s death just like protests around Ikraine invasion…
With all due respect to the complete mess in Eastern Europe given the ambitions of Kremlin actors as supervised by V. Putin, the high - level corruption in Russian Federation is a distinctly separate establishment from the horrible, vengeful military complex that carries on in Ukraine right now. The overall centrism that existed under soviet rule might have saved Navalny's life -- an example of this among others is, was the case of N. Sharansky, who was simply jailed in primitive conditions, but per chance endured and was safely released given Western political pressures. Navalny's case and his surprising and shocking death have more to do with a corrupt "dictature" of modern tyranny in the Kremlin that personalizes repression and the punition of dissenters, probably using computers. A wild guess here is that the Putin he, Alexei Navalny, believed he knew, and who would otherwise nor really detain nor execute under the circumstances, was not the leader who allowed these diabolical things to happen. A view here also that under the circumstances, and given again the efforts of the Kremlin to shape politics in Europe to its own administrative model, is that the leader of Russian Federation while in attempts to appear a Western - style executive to the extent possible, is the same what could be mentioned as a recurring tyrannical, militarily tooled, repressive and morally sick character at the political helm. The death of Alexei Navalny, while it follows no path of logic, is by its commission and cause the work of criminals. Cowards to the extent this was an avenue as pursued and then allowed to happen by those who could have stopped the path or chain of things leading to demise. Another example, of the actual willful tolerance of what were soviet leaders was the years - long house arrest of Vaclav Havel. The process under which Havel was held, against rights and all modern ethics of free people, and that made little sense, but Havel remained alive and all for the better. That this jovial personality, full of life and the fight for freedoms and rights for everybody, Alexei Navalny was put in the ground is truly in every sense sad and sorrowful -- the castle is of sand.
Thank you, Mr. McFaul. Men like Alexei Navalny come along once in a lifetime, if that; we need more men and women like him today all over the world. I believe Trump and Putin have created a hatred in the souls of many people around the world for themselves. Putin and Trump and others like them have open the eyes of many around the world to see what evil lies in the hearts of men and women like them. Their time is up; it is only a matter of time when one way or another they will be gone, and I think that will be in the not-too-distant future. May Alexei Navalny's memory be a blessing to us all.
Ambassador McFaul,
I would have liked to read your essay, but I do not subscribe to The Washington Post, so it was behind their firewall.
Opinion by Michael McFaul
February 17, 2024 at 13:48 CT
Vladimir Putin killed my friend Alexei Navalny this week. There will be a time and place to discuss the politics and how the free world should respond. For now, I want to share a few memories.
The Alexei Navalny I knew was super smart. For me, the sign of a true intellectual is the courage to change your mind. We disagreed about some things he had said in the past, particularly about the Caucasus and Crimea. He listened, and it felt to me he was rethinking some of his earlier statements. But he also pushed back, challenging my commitment to “neoliberalism” in the 1990s. Russia would be better off, he argued, had the West supported social democratic ideas back then. He was right. I changed my mind, too. That’s called learning. He was exceptional at that.
The Alexei I knew was extremely charming. I remember our first meeting at the White House in 2009 when I worked at the National Security Council. My boss at the time, Barack Obama, was known for his charisma. Navalny had Obama-caliber presence. I understood that day why Putin feared him. In a free and fair election, Navalny would have destroyed Putin. Remember that the next time you read a poll in the media about Putin’s popularity.
The Alexei I knew was incredibly funny. When I served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014, we never had a formal meeting, just one chance encounter at an anniversary dinner for the Moscow Times. Navalny understood that any public meetings with me would just fuel conspiracy stories constantly propagated on Putin’s media channels — that the United States was funding his operation. So, instead, we interacted on Twitter, always in a humorous, playful way.
When I once called Russia a “wild country” after a group of paid Putin agitators accosted me on the street, it felt like the whole world, including many in the United States, berated me for my “undiplomatic” outburst. Not Alexei. He asked on Twitter why I did not just belt them, since I had diplomatic immunity.
In another tweet, lampooning Putin’s conspiracy-mongering, Navalny instructed me to meet him at some metro station in the “last wagon” (a common way to meet people during the Soviet days) to do our “secret” business.
The Alexei I knew — and that the world knew — was incredibly brave and firmly committed to his values: fighting Putin’s corruption and trying to liberate his country from totalitarian dictatorship. As a scholar of democratization and a sometimes activist for democracy, I have studied or had the privilege of meeting some of the most courageous freedom fighters in the world. Navalny was one of them — the Mandela of Putin’s Russia. Nelson Mandela survived his three decades of captivity. Navalny tragically did not.
The Alexei I knew was a fierce family man. He was so proud of his daughter, Dasha, when she got into Stanford, where I teach. He and his wife, Yuliya, were just like all the other excited Stanford parents when they dropped Dasha off on campus her first year. And they have watched her grow into a strong, principled, charismatic leader, just like her dad and mom. Of course, Alexei had to watch from afar.
In fact, well before he decided to go back to Russia, it seemed to me his deepest anxiety was not about enduring torture in Putin’s gulag or even facing death, but about being an absentee father and husband. By doing what he thought was right for his country, he knew that he was asking his family to sacrifice a lot, too. And today, that sacrifice has grown so much larger.
Navalny dreamed of a free Russia. Barbaric dictators such as Putin can kill men, but they cannot kill ideas. I do not know when, but I am confident that Navalny’s ideas of freedom will outlive Putin’s ideas of tyranny.
Michael McFaul
Professor of Political Science, Director of Freeman Spogli Institute & Hoover Senior Fellow all at Stanford University.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia, 2012-2014.
2nd guessing, maybe Alexey could have done as much countering Putin from abroad ??? Putin will absorb the backlash from Alrxey’s death just like protests around Ikraine invasion…
Bob Langfelder, get rest…
With all due respect to the complete mess in Eastern Europe given the ambitions of Kremlin actors as supervised by V. Putin, the high - level corruption in Russian Federation is a distinctly separate establishment from the horrible, vengeful military complex that carries on in Ukraine right now. The overall centrism that existed under soviet rule might have saved Navalny's life -- an example of this among others is, was the case of N. Sharansky, who was simply jailed in primitive conditions, but per chance endured and was safely released given Western political pressures. Navalny's case and his surprising and shocking death have more to do with a corrupt "dictature" of modern tyranny in the Kremlin that personalizes repression and the punition of dissenters, probably using computers. A wild guess here is that the Putin he, Alexei Navalny, believed he knew, and who would otherwise nor really detain nor execute under the circumstances, was not the leader who allowed these diabolical things to happen. A view here also that under the circumstances, and given again the efforts of the Kremlin to shape politics in Europe to its own administrative model, is that the leader of Russian Federation while in attempts to appear a Western - style executive to the extent possible, is the same what could be mentioned as a recurring tyrannical, militarily tooled, repressive and morally sick character at the political helm. The death of Alexei Navalny, while it follows no path of logic, is by its commission and cause the work of criminals. Cowards to the extent this was an avenue as pursued and then allowed to happen by those who could have stopped the path or chain of things leading to demise. Another example, of the actual willful tolerance of what were soviet leaders was the years - long house arrest of Vaclav Havel. The process under which Havel was held, against rights and all modern ethics of free people, and that made little sense, but Havel remained alive and all for the better. That this jovial personality, full of life and the fight for freedoms and rights for everybody, Alexei Navalny was put in the ground is truly in every sense sad and sorrowful -- the castle is of sand.