I couldn’t sleep last night. So I wrote this essay about Alexey Navalny: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/17/navalny-friendship-activism-heroism-mcfaul/McFaul's World is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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.
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.
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.