How Alexei Navalny’s death could backfire for Putin

The Kremlin may hope his death serves as a deterrent to those toying with opposition activism, but in truth it makes the Russian president’s fiercest critic a hero and a martyr, writes Mary Dejevsky

Navalny’s return to Russia in 2021 was an act of extraordinary courage on the part of someone who knew he was a marked man (AP)

It could be said that the fate of Alexei Navalny was sealed on 17 January, 2021, the day that he decided to return to Russia after five months of treatment and convalescence in Germany following a suspected poisoning in Siberia.

His return was an act of extraordinary courage on the part of someone who knew he was a marked man, but saw himself first and foremost as a Russian, whose mission and future made sense only in his home country, even if he was behind bars.

His death could be cast as a state-sponsored assassination. The Kremlin, or more accurately, Vladimir Putin, was intent on eliminating Navalny – the man he never named – even more so after an apparent first attempt was thwarted by a professionally minded pilot and a quick-thinking medical team in Omsk.