The Russian opposition leader, one of President Putin’s fiercest critics, died in a remote Arctic penal colony in February while he was serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges. Now, new excerpts from his upcoming memoir show he knew he wouldn’t live to see his grandchildren.
Russia’s late opposition leader Alexei Navalny believed he would die in prison, according to excerpts from his memoir.
Mr Navalny was one of President Putin’s fiercest critics and relentlessly campaigned against corruption in the Kremlin.
He died in a remote Arctic penal colony in February while serving a 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges and always maintained the charges were politically motivated.
Excerpts from his upcoming memoir, Patriot, were released by the New Yorker magazine on Friday.
The book has been described as his “final letter to the world” by its publisher Alfred A Knopf.
In an excerpt, Mr Navalny wrote that he would “imagine, as realistically as possible, the worst thing that could happen. And then… accept it”.
For him, the worst thing that could happen was dying in prison.
“I will spend the rest of my life in prison and die here,” he wrote on 22 March 2022.
“There will not be anybody to say goodbye to… all anniversaries will be celebrated without me. I’ll never see my grandchildren.”
Although he accepted what would become his fate, he didn’t accept the problems he saw in Russian society.
“My approach to the situation is certainly not one of contemplative passivity. I am trying to do everything I can from here to put an end to authoritarianism (or, more modestly, to contribute to ending it),” he wrote.
He was sent to jail in 2021 after recuperating in Germany following a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
Russian officials deny involvement both in the poisoning and his death.