This is bad but not unexpected news (a main question being what took homicidal thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin so long):
Alexei Navalny, the fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests, died in prison Friday, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.
The Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement that Navalny felt unwell after a walk on Friday and lost consciousness. An ambulance arrived to try to rehabilitate him, but he died.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says Putin was informed of Navalny’s death and the prison service was looking into the death in line with standard procedures.
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the politician’s team had no confirmation of his death so far and that his lawyer was traveling to the town where he was held.
Navalny, who was serving a 19-year sentence on charges of extremism, was moved in December from his former prison in the Vladimir region of central Russia to to a “special regime” penal colony — the highest security level of prisons in Russia — above the Artic Circle...
The heroic Navalny joins a long line of Putin critics, rivals, and oligarchs to die under *unusual* circumstances (nerve agents, poisoning, exploding planes, window- diving, etc.). Navalny's reported death provides more clarity, if any more were needed, of the nature of the evil psychopath running Russia, and of the moral and political bedfellows he has here in the authoritarian Malignant Loser's Republican Party / cult. Navalny's death comes as the Malignant Loser's puppets in the House continue to block life-or-death aid to Ukraine. It also comes less than a day after the revelation of Russia's plans to put a nuclear weapon in Earth orbit to knock out Western intelligence and communications satellites, and the FBI's and Western allies' busting of a major Russian "botnet" hacking operation.
The stakes couldn't be higher and the choice clearer, both here and in Ukraine.
BONUS: Some initial reactions here.
BONUS II: Navalny in his own words --
A clear and brave message from @navalny in case the regime should kill him. pic.twitter.com/zOEoFZheEG
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) February 16, 2024
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