Live Updates: Navalny’s Death Would Deprive Russia of Leading Opposition Voice Aleksei A. Navalny died in prison, the Russian authorities said. The anticorruption campaigner rose to become the most prominent critic of President Vladimir V. Putin. Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times By Reuters Evgeny Feldman/Associated Press By Reuters Sergey Ponomarev/Associated Press By Reuters Vasily Maximov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images James Hill for The New York Times Alexey Malgavko/Reuters Mstyslav Chernov/Associated Press Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Alexander Nemenov/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Yuri Kochetkov/EPA, via Shutterstock The death of Aleksei A. Navalny, reported by the authorities in Russia on Friday, would leave the country without its most prominent opposition voice at a time when President Vladimir V. Putin has amassed near-total power, invaded neighboring Ukraine and drawn the sharpest divisions with U.S.-led Western allies since the end of the Cold War. Mr. Navalny had been serving multiple prison sentences — on what supporters said were fabricated charges — that would likely have kept him locked up until at least 2031. The news of his death shocked world leaders, with Vice President Kamala Harris saying that while the United States was still trying to confirm the reports, it believed “Russia is responsible.” Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement that Mr. Navalny, 47, had lost consciousness and died after taking a walk on Friday in the Arctic prison where he was moved late last year. “All necessary resuscitation measures were taken, which did not lead to positive results,” the statement said. Mr. Navalny’s spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said in a live broadcast that his team could not immediately confirm his death. But Ivan Zhdanov, a member of the team, said that in all likelihood he was dead. Here is what else to know: Mr. Putin did not immediately comment on the reports. His spokesman said that Mr. Navalny’s death had been reported to Mr. Putin, according to the Tass state news service. Shortly after the announcement, Russian television showed Mr. Putin speaking with students and industrial workers in the Ural Mountains, where he was asked about topics like robotics, government subsidies and engineering schools. He did not mention Mr. Navalny. Yulia Navalnaya, Mr. Navalny’s wife, made a dramatic appearance at the Munich Security Conference, telling an audience of world leaders that while no one could trust Mr. Putin’s government, if her husband was dead, “they will be brought to justice.” Last August, a court handed Mr. Navalny a new, 19-year sentence on charges of supporting “extremism,” and in December he disappeared for three weeks as the Russian authorities transferred him to a remote penal colony in the Arctic. He was last seen publicly on Thursday, when he appeared via video link in a court hearing. Mr. Navalny, a former real estate lawyer, rose to prominence as an anticorruption activist. In 2020, while traveling in Siberia, Mr. Navalny fell severely ill. After he was treated in Germany, several countries determined that he had been poisoned with Novichok, a Soviet-era nerve agent that was used at least once before in an attack on a Kremlin enemy. Mr. Navalny’s death would deal a major blow to Russia’s marginalized opposition movement, already weakened by repression, internal rivalries and wartime nationalism. His supporters expressed disbelief: “Murder,” many wrote on social media, but the sentiment running beneath the comments was a loss of hope. Reporting from Munich Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, met in Munich with the U.S. vice president, Kamala Harris, on the sidelines of a security conference they were both attending. “The vice president expressed her sorrow and outrage over reports of his death and the vice president said her prayers are with Yulia and the entire family,” Harris’s office said in a statement. Ivan Zhdanov, one of Navalny’s top aides, called what appears to have happened to Navalny a “political murder in its purist form” by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. Zhdanov said Navalny’s organization was still functioning. Its employees gathered an hour ago at its office in Vilnius, Lithuania. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told Russian journalists that statements by Western officials that the Kremlin was to blame for Navalny’s death were “absolutely unacceptable” because “there is no information about the cause of death.” Ivan Zhdanov, a member of Navalny’s team, said in a live broadcast that with all probability Navalny had been killed in prison. Zhdanov said that, under Russian law, Navalny’s next of kin should receive notification of his death within a day. But so far no notification had been given. He said the prison was not answering calls. Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press secretary, said in a live broadcast that Navalny’s team was not yet able to issue an official confirmation of his death but believes in all likelihood he has died. Aleksei A. Navalny has long been a controversial figure in Ukraine, where he was respected for his staunch opposition to the autocratic rule of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but also criticized for comments that appeared to question Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty. So when reports of his death broke on Friday, there was a mixed response among Ukrainians. President Volodymyr Zelensky was among those to lament Mr. Navalny as yet another victim of the Russian government, because Mr. Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine two years ago that has inflicted daily suffering on its people. “It is clear to me that he was killed like thousands of others who were tortured to death because of one person, Putin,” Mr. Zelensky said during a news conference Friday in Berlin. But many Ukrainians remembered Mr. Navalny less favorably, in particular recalling his comments about Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014. Mr. Navalny, who had Ukrainian roots, had suggested that the region had always been an integral part of Russia. “Everything is very ambiguous” in Mr. Navalny, said Daria Nepomniashcha, a Kyiv resident. “There are no guarantees whatsoever that he would have been a good president.” In an interview with the Echo of Moscow radio station in 2014, Mr. Navalny said that “despite the fact that Crimea was seized with outrageous violations of all international norms, nevertheless, the realities are such that Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation.” “So let’s not kid ourselves,” he added. “It will remain part of Russia and will never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future.” Mr. Navalny then suggested that, should he become president of Russia, he would not return Crimea to Ukraine. The comments infuriated many Ukrainians, who said they reflected deeply rooted imperialist views in Russia. Mr. Navalny also supported Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, although he later apologized for those comments. While in jail, Mr. Navalny condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, although it did little to improve his reputation there. “Alexey Navalny is widely distrusted, if not despised, in Ukraine,” wrote David M. Herszenhorn, an editor at The Washington Post, in a book published last year about Mr. Navalny. Several residents of Kyiv on Friday said that Mr. Navalny’s fate had been sealed the moment he was jailed about three years ago, noting Russia’s highly repressive regime. “This country is terrifying. It was very much expected,” said Dana Sebesevych, 33, said of reports of his death. Still, they also did not hide their anger toward a man who, they said, had questioned Ukraine’s sense of nationhood. “Great. Another person who said Crimea cannot be returned to Ukraine has died,” Erza Pastor, a Kyiv resident, said on Friday afternoon. The distrust among Ukrainians was evident last year when many expressed outrage that “Navalny,” a documentary about the Russian opposition leader, was named best documentary at the Academy Awards. Some Ukrainians complained that the acceptance speech by his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, did not mention the war in Ukraine and that Mr. Zelensky’s request to address the audience at the ceremony had been denied. “The problem here is not that a documentary about Navalny won an Oscar – it’s the stance of the Russian opposition in general, which has not taken any steps to rethink its approach to the imperialist narrative inherent in Russia’s historical and current relations with its neighbors,” Kate Tsurkan, a reporter at The Kyiv Independent wrote in an op-ed at the time. Reporting from Munich Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who was at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, met with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken at the event. “The secretary expressed his condolences to Ms. Navalny if the reports of Aleksei Navalny’s death are true and reiterated that Russia is responsible for his death,” said Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman. When the Russian authorities announced that the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had died in an Arctic prison on Friday, some supporters and Western officials expressed skepticism, given the Kremlin’s track record of falsehoods, half-truths and outright lies in the service of propaganda. Yulia Navalnaya, Mr. Navalny’s wife, who learned the news while attending an international security conference in Munich, said that no one can trust President Vladimir V. Putin’s government. “They are lying constantly,” she said. But if it is true that her husband is dead, she added, “They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.” Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said that Mr. Navalny, 47, had lost consciousness and died after taking a walk on Friday in the Arctic prison where he was moved late last year. “All necessary resuscitation measures were taken, which did not lead to positive results,” the statement said. A spokeswoman for Mr. Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, said on social media that his team could not immediately confirm his death, and that a lawyer was going to the remote town where the prison is to investigate. Mr. Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, said that she did not want to hear any condolences yet. According to Novaya Gazeta, a Russian news outlet that quoted her Facebook account, Ms. Navalnaya had found her son “alive, healthy and happy” when she last saw him in the penal colony on Monday. Leonid Volkov, her husband’s longtime chief of staff, was with Ms. Navalny attending the Munich Security Conference, where Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and leaders from around Europe were gathering to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other threats, many emanating from Moscow. Ms. Harris said at the start of her address to the conference — which had already been expected to focus on Russia — that the United States was still trying to confirm the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death, but that it held Russia’s government responsible. “If confirmed, this would be a further sign of Putin’s brutality,” she said. “Whatever story they tell, let us be clear Russia is responsible and we’ll have more to say on this later.” Mr. Blinken, before a meeting with Indian officials, also injected a skeptical note into his comments. “If these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family,” he said. Mr. Navalny was last seen in public on Thursday, when he appeared via video link in a court hearing. Standing in a prison cage and wearing a black robe, he appeared to be in good spirits despite being held in a harsh prison above the Arctic Circle. He jokingly asked the judge for part of his “huge salary.” Many of his supporters on Friday also expressed skepticism about the official statements. Some on social media described his reported death as a “murder,” but others expressed the hope the report of his death was false. One woman wrote on Telegram: “Please tell me that everything is fine! Otherwise it’s simple … No future, no hope, nothing.” Reporting from Berlin Pro-democracy Russians are gathering in impromptu vigils around the world. “Hope dies last,” Nikolai Medvedev, 37, said in an interview by the Russian Embassy in Berlin, where protesters chanted, “Russia without Putin!” He added: “Today, along with Aleksei, I’m forced to bury part of my hope.” Just hours after her husband was reported dead, Yulia Navalnaya made a dramatic, surprise appearance at a gathering of world leaders in Munich on Friday. Taking the stage, she denounced President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and vowed that he and his circle “will be brought to justice.” The diplomats and political leaders at the Munich Security Conference were already reeling from reports that her husband, Aleksei A. Navalny, the Russian dissident, had died in prison under suspicious circumstances when Ms. Navalny stunned the hall by striding in. Conference organizers quickly wrapped up a session with Vice President Kamala Harris and turned the microphone over to Ms. Navalnaya. “We cannot believe Putin and his government,” Ms. Navalnaya told the audience. “They are lying constantly. But if it’s true, I would like Putin and all his staff, everybody around him, his government, his friends, I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family and with my husband. They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.” Ms. Navalnaya spoke clearly and calmly, with remarkable composure, her face etched with evident pain but under complete control. Standing at the lectern, she clasped her hands in front of her and stared straight ahead as if willing herself to focus on her message. The audience was captivated and gave her an emotional standing ovation when she finished. In the annals of international meetings, it would be hard to remember a more riveting moment, when the careful scripts of government leaders laden with diplomatic jargon fall to the wayside as life-and-death questions play out so intensely in front of them. The conference was already focused on security threats from Russia, and Friday’s news added new urgency to the gathering. Ms. Navalnaya had come to Munich along with Leonid Volkov, her husband’s longtime chief of staff, to keep world leaders focused on her husband’s case and the clampdown on dissent by Mr. Putin’s government. She met on Thursday evening with conference attendees, who described conversations hoping for better days ahead. Ms. Harris addressed the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death at the beginning of her speech to the conference, extending her sympathy to Ms. Navalnaya and saying that Washington was still gathering information. “If confirmed,” Ms. Harris said, “this would be a further sign of Putin’s brutality. Whatever story they tell let us, be clear: Russia is responsible, and we’ll have more to say on this later.” Over the years, through Mr. Navalny’s near death from poisoning and his long prison sentences, many Russians hoped that Ms. Navalnaya might step in to become an alternative leading figure in the opposition. She has always demurred. While fiercely outspoken in defense of her husband and critical of the many forms of oppression that he faced, she has never ventured directly into opposition politics — and rarely if ever took to a podium as she did in Munich. During Mr. Navalny’s time in Germany, where he was treated after a poisoning in 2020, she remained private, posting only occasional photos of the two of them together during his treatment and recovery, but never speaking publicly. She became familiar to millions around the world last year, however, when she appeared at the Academy Awards ceremony, where the documentary “Navalny” won an Oscar. In an interview afterward with Der Spiegel, the German news outlet, she expressed worry for her husband’s health in prison and lamented that she might never get to see him in person again. “We all understand that it is Putin personally who is keeping Aleksei in prison,” she said then, “and as long as he stays in power, it is hard to imagine that Aleksei will be released.” Mr. Navalny had continued to post on social media from prison by passing messages to his visiting lawyers. His most recent Instagram post was on Wednesday — Valentine’s Day — and it was a message to Yulia: We may be separated by “blue blizzards and thousands of kilometers,” he wrote, “but I feel that you are near me every second, and I keep loving you even more.” Anton Troianovski and Melissa Eddy contributed reporting. Reports of the death of Aleksei A. Navalny threaten to deal a major blow to Russia’s already marginalized opposition movement. Escalating repression, internal rivalries and wartime nationalism had already left the opposition adrift and struggling to influence the country’s direction. Within the ever-changing constellation of Russian opposition groups, Mr. Navalny was a towering figure, an internationally recognized voice of dissent to President Vladimir V. Putin’s government and someone with an unmatched political network. Though Mr. Navalny had never united Russia’s disparate opposition groups behind him — and his lieutenants have largely rejected formal alliances — his status as Mr. Putin’s most prominent opponent had shaped organized opposition for years. Mr. Navalny’s influence was still felt even after he disappeared from the public arena following his imprisonment three years ago. The Russian government’s claim on Friday that Mr. Navalny had died in jail leaves the opposition without an obvious leader. “It would be impossible for someone to become Navalny 2.0 in today’s Russia,” said Ben Noble, a political scientist at University College London who co-wrote a book about Mr. Navalny. “We are dealing with a very different political system today.” Mr. Navalny rose to prominence in the early 2010s when Mr. Putin still allowed a degree of political competition, betting more on improving living standards rather than a reliance on repression. Mr. Navalny skillfully combined the use of social media with traditional campaigning, political organizing, and personal charisma to build a nationwide network of offices and a political media machine. These conditions no longer exist, said Mr. Noble. The media is tightly controlled, protests have been criminalized and any criticism of the official Kremlin line risks a prison sentence. Dozens of political activists are in jail, including seven members of Mr. Navalny’s legal or political team, according to his spokesperson. Russia’s most vocal opposition figures have been forced into exile, where they are using YouTube to reach audiences inside Russia; nevertheless, their voices have been largely marginalized by the ubiquity of the Kremlin’s propaganda. Their message has also been diluted by personal rivalries. Mr. Navalny’s exiled team of aides, for example, have frequently clashed with another prominent opposition figure, Maxim Katz, over political strategy and personal accusations in increasingly byzantine social media exchanges. A decision by an antiwar politician, Boris B. Nadezdhin, to run against Mr. Putin in next month’s elections had quieted internal feuds. Most prominent opposition groups, including Mr. Navalny’s team, had fallen behind his candidacy. Despite draconian wartime restrictions, more than 100,000 Russians added their signatures in support of Mr. Nadezhdin’s candidacy, energizing an opposition movement that has struggled to connect with voters since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (The government-controlled election agency has challenged some of the signatures that Mr. Nadezdhin was required to collect to register his candidacy, likely ending his run). Some experts caution that Mr. Nadezdhin’s rise to prominence reflects the desire of Russians to register opposition to the war, rather than support for his candidacy. Mr. Nadezhdin, a former lawmaker, had been unknown to most Russians until this year. Mr. Navalny’s reported death, which his aides did not immediately confirm, has caused an outpouring of solidarity from Russia’s opposition figures. “Aleksei is one of the most talented and brave people that I have known,” Mr. Nadezhdin said in a Telegram post about the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death. The sense of unity among the opposition may not last long, Mr. Noble said. “I can’t imagine that Navalny’s death will lead them to overcome their ideological differences and personal squabbles,” he said. Alina Lobzina contributed reporting. On Wednesday, two days before Russian authorities reported his death, Aleksei A. Navalny was sentenced to another term in a special punishment cell in an Arctic prison, a notoriously harsh form of incarceration generally used to force inmates into subjugation. The sentencing marked the 27th time that prison authorities had sent Mr. Navalny into a punishment cell, according to Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman. If he were to have served this last term in full, he would have spent a total of 308 days in similar cells, Ms. Yarmysh said. According to Eva Merkacheva, a Russian journalist who has covered the country’s prisons extensively, inmates in such cells are often left cold and hungry, and those conditions could account for reports of Mr. Navalny’s death. ”I think his endless transfers to a punishment cell could definitely lead to this,” Ms. Merkacheva told MSK1, a news site. Though incarcerated, Mr. Navalny had continued to post messages on social media by passing notes to his visiting lawyers, and he had described the brutal conditions in punishment cells. Prison authorities used trivial transgressions as reasons to punish Mr. Navalny, he wrote in one Instagram post. He had been punished, he said, for wearing an unbuttoned robe, for not walking with his hands behind his back while being transferred between cells, and for failing to introduce himself properly. Apart from spending time in a frigid, cramped cell, inmates in punishment cells are also limited in their ability to exercise, spending time in a tiny walled courtyard with a roof of prison bars. In his new penal colony in the Arctic, for instance, Mr. Navalny was allowed to go out only in the mornings, while it was still dark and the temperatures were at their lowest point. “It’s never been colder than -25°F.,” Mr. Navalny wrote on social media in January, describing his walks. “Even at that temperature you can walk for more than half an hour, but only if you have time to grow a new nose, ears and fingers.” In his posts, Mr. Navalny called his confinement to punishment cells a form of torture, though he also joked cavalierly that it was an opportunity for him to meditate. But harsh prison conditions did damage Mr. Navalny’s health. He was first sent to a penal colony in March 2021, just months after being poisoned by a nerve agent that nearly killed him. Following the poisoning, Mr. Navalny lost significant weight and had to relearn basic movements, such as how to use his fingers with his phone. During his first weeks in the penal colony, Mr. Navalny’s health quickly deteriorated. Leonid Volkov, his chief of staff, said that weeks after he was transferred to his first penal colony, Mr. Navalny suffered from acute back and leg pain. While imprisoned, Mr. Navalny said that he was not receiving proper medical treatment, and declared a hunger strike to protest it. By the time he stopped it more than three weeks later, he said, he was left like “a skeleton walking, swaying, in its cell.” In June 2022, Mr. Navalny was transferred to a harsher prison, where problems with his spine deteriorated, he said, because he had to spend most of his time with his movements constrained by the tight confines of the punishment cell. Doctors that came to see him did not disclose his diagnosis, he said, adding that he was also administered undisclosed shots. In January 2023, Mr. Navalny’s wife, Yulia, said in a post on Instagram that her husband was sick with a high fever and that instead of helping him, prison officials transferred another sick person into his cell. The authorities refused to transfer him to a medical facility at the time, Mr. Navalny said, and a group of Russian doctors wrote letters demanding the authorities treat him. For a time, his condition improved, but weeks later an ambulance had to be called because of an acute stomach condition, Mr. Navalny’s lawyer said. Last December, Mr. Navalny lost consciousness in his cell, his spokeswoman said. “We don’t know what it was,” she said on social media. “But given that he is deprived of food and is kept in a punishment cell without ventilation, with minimum walks, it looks like a collapse from hunger.” In December, Mr. Navalny spent almost three weeks traveling across the Russian prison system being transferred to his new penal colony in the Arctic. Upon arrival, he said that the trip was “pretty exhausting.” Prominent Kremlin allies celebrated Navalny’s reported death or spread conspiracy theories. Margarita Simonyan, the head of the Russian government’s RT television network, posted on social media that she had received numerous messages translating loosely to: “Rest in pain.” Vyacheslav Volodin, the head of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, claimed that “Washington and Brussels are to blame for Navalny’s death,” because they “benefit” from it, without explaining why. Word of Aleksei A. Navalny’s death drew condemnation from across Europe on Friday, with leaders holding Russia’s government, and specifically President Vladimir V. Putin, responsible for the demise of the imprisoned Russian dissident. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who was in Germany on Friday for the Munich Security Conference, said that Mr. Navalny “was killed by Putin, like thousands of others who were tortured because of this one creature.” Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, speaking alongside Mr. Zelensky after signing a security agreement with him in Berlin, expressed dismay at the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death, calling them “very depressing.” “It’s awful the way Russia has changed,” Mr. Scholz said. His predecessor as chancellor, Angela Merkel, who in 2020 succeeded in persuading Mr. Putin to allow Mr. Navalny to be flown to Berlin for treatment after being poisoned, expressed her “great dismay” at the reports of the opposition leader’s death. “He was a victim of Russia’s repressive state power,” Ms. Merkel said in a statement. “It is terrible that a courageous, fearless voice who stood up for his country has been silenced by terrible methods.” Throughout her 16-year tenure, Ms. Merkel was considered the only Western leader capable of communicating with Mr. Putin. Despite his repeated attempts to intimidate her, she insisted that he would be more dangerous if isolated, and maintained continual contact with him. During her final visit to Moscow as chancellor in August 2021, Ms. Merkel urged the Russian president to release Mr. Navalny, calling his detention “unacceptable.” In France, which Mr. Zelensky was also visiting on Friday, President Emmanuel Macron said: “In today’s Russia, free spirits are put in the Gulag and condemned to death. Anger and indignation.” “I pay tribute to the memory of Alexeï Navalny, his commitment and his courage,” Mr. Macron wrote on the social platform X. “My thoughts are with his family, his loved ones and the Russian people. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, whose country has long been an outspoken critic of Russia’s detention of Mr. Navalny, as well as its broader crackdown on dissent, called Mr. Navalny’s death “terrible.” “As the fiercest advocate for Russian democracy, Alexei Navalny demonstrated incredible courage throughout his life,” Mr. Sunak wrote on X. “My thoughts are with his wife and the people of Russia, for whom this is a huge tragedy.” Britain has had a tense relationship with Russia for years, a rift that was deepened by the poisoning of two former Russian intelligence operatives on British soil in the last two decades, the subsequent expulsion of Russian diplomats from Britain, and Britain’s stalwart support of Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Mr. Sunak’s sentiments were echoed by other leaders. The European Union “holds the Russian regime for sole responsible for this tragic death,” Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said on social media. Mr. Navalny, he added, “fought for the values of freedom and democracy. For his ideals, he made the ultimate sacrifice.” Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, said Mr. Navalny had been “a strong voice for freedom.” He added, “All the facts has to be established, and Russia has serious questions to answer.” Reporting from Munich Speaking with remarkable composure, Yulia Navalnaya tells the Munich Security Conference that no one can trust Vladimir Putin’s government because “they are lying constantly.” But if it is true that her husband is dead, she added, “They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.” Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, said that she didn’t want to hear any condolences yet. According to Novaya Gazeta, a Russian news outlet that quoted her Facebook account, Ms. Navalnaya had found her son “alive, healthy and happy” when she last saw him in his penal colony on Monday. Reporting from Munich Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, just walked into the Munich Security Conference and took a seat in the front row to watch Vice President Kamala Harris in a question-and-answer session. Reporting from Munich Navalnaya is about to address the conference in a surprise appearance. In 2000, the year that Vladimir V. Putin was first elected president of Russia, Aleksei A. Navalny joined the liberal Yabloko party. Having studied law and finance, and worked as a real estate lawyer, Mr. Navalny looked for ways to organize grass-roots opposition to the Kremlin at a time when Russia’s established opposition parties were coming to play only a limited role in Mr. Putin’s tightly choreographed political system. He soon focused on the corruption of Mr. Putin’s inner circle as the root of Russia’s ills. It was something of a political common denominator. Who, after all, is publicly in favor of corruption? He organized to stop what he called lawless Moscow construction projects, moderated political debates and started a radio show. He bought stock in state-owned companies, using his standing as a shareholder to force disclosures, and railed against Putin-supporting business tycoons on a blog that was widely read in Moscow’s financial circles. He also joined rallies held by Russian nationalist groups that depicted white, ethnic Russians as beaten down by immigration from Central Asia as the federal government extended financial support for the poor, predominantly Muslim regions of the Caucasus. One of Mr. Navalny’s early slogans was “Stop feeding the Caucasus!” The Yabloko party expelled him in 2007 for his nationalist activities. That year, he got his start by suing Russian companies to force disclosure of accounting documents, using his standing as a minority stockholder owning a few shares. He would then publish the disclosures on a blog, eventually building up a following. While the blog’s purpose was financial it was also politically daring, because it accused government insiders of abuse and Mr. Putin of tolerating it. Social media outlets like Twitter and Vkontakte, a Russian analogue to Facebook, propelled Mr. Navalny’s rise, allowing him to promote street protests opposed to Mr. Putin’s return to power for a third presidential term. When the protests revived a beleaguered opposition, Mr. Navalny came to be seen as the movement’s leader. In 2013, he ran for mayor of Moscow, garnering more than 600,000 votes and coming close to forcing the Kremlin-favored candidate into a second round of voting. Reports of Aleksei A. Navalny’s death came as his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was at a prominent security conference in Munich, meeting with European and American leaders in an effort to draw attention to her husband’s case and Russia’s clampdown on dissent. Ms. Navalnaya and Leonid Volkov, her husband’s longtime chief of staff, were attending the Munich Security Conference, where Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and leaders from around Europe were gathering to discuss the war in Ukraine and other threats — many emanating from Moscow and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Ms. Navalnaya could not immediately be reached for comment. The news of Mr. Navalny’s death shocked many at the conference and could add new urgency to the discussion. Ms. Harris said at the start of her address to the conference — which had already been expected to focus on Russia — that the United States was still trying to confirm the reports of Mr. Navalny’s death, but that it held Russia’s government responsible. “If confirmed, this would be a further sign of Putin’s brutality,” she said. “Whatever story they tell, let us be clear Russia is responsible and we’ll have more to say on this later.” Mr. Blinken, before a meeting with Indian officials, told reporters: “If these reports are accurate, our hearts go out to his wife and his family. Beyond that, his death in a Russian prison and the fixation and fear of one man only underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built.” President Biden had warned Mr. Putin not to harm Mr. Navalny while in prison. “I made it clear to him that I believe the consequences of that would be devastating for Russia,” Mr. Biden told reporters after meeting with Mr. Putin in Geneva in 2021. “What do you think happens when he’s saying it’s not about hurting Navalny, all the stuff he says to rationalize the treatment of Navalny, and then he dies in prison?” Mr. Biden continued. “It’s about trust. It’s about their ability to influence other nations in a positive way.” Ms. Navalnaya has been a respected surrogate for her husband in settings like Munich. “I saw Yulia Navalnaya and Leonid Volkov last night here in Munich,” said Michael McFaul, a former American ambassador to Moscow. “They had come to this conference to meet with world leaders and remind them of Aleksei and the horrific conditions he was enduring in a special prison cell designed just to torture him.” Edward Wong contributed reporting. Reporting from Munich Vice President Kamala Harris said that the United States was still trying to confirm reports of Navalny’s death, but that it held Russia’s government responsible. “If confirmed, this would be a further sign of Putin’s’ brutality,” she said in an address to the Munich Security Conference. “Whatever story they tell, let us be clear: Russia is responsible, and we’ll have more to say on this later.” Before his arrest in 2021, Navalny said that if he were ever killed, then his supporters “must not give up.” Those comments, from the 2022 documentary “Navalny,” are now ricocheting through Russian social media. He says at the end of that movie: “If they decided to kill me, then it means we are incredibly powerful in that moment. You have to use that power.” Aleksei A. Navalny was last seen in public on Thursday, when he appeared via video link in a court hearing. Standing in a prison cage and wearing a black robe, Mr. Navalny appeared to be in good spirits despite being held in a harsh prison above the Arctic Circle. He jokingly asked the judge for part of his “huge salary.” “Because I am running out of money thanks to your decisions,” Mr. Navalny said, referring to multiple fines imposed on him, according to a video published by Sotavision, a Russian news outlet According to Sotavision, Mr. Navalny complained about being the only prisoner confined to a harsh punishment cell who was also forced to work at the prison sewing workshop. When he failed to do so, he was fined, he said. Mr. Navalny was engaged in multiple court cases against the Russian prison service. He complained about a lack of access to proper dental and medical care and a lack of writing tools. He also complained about not having the right to have a Bible in his cell. Mr. Navalny used his appearances in court to speak out about his political views. On Feb. 8, he called on Russians to vote for any candidate but President Vladimir V. Putin in next month’s presidential election. “I performed my small agitation work, as you can see,” Mr. Navalny said, according to a recording published by his allies. In August 2020, soon after a private plane carrying Aleksei A. Navalny touched down in Berlin, doctors treating him at the prestigious Charité hospital there became so alarmed that they called in the German Army. Mr. Navalny was not suffering from low blood sugar or even a standard detective-novel poison like arsenic or cyanide. It was, the German doctors suspected, something far more dangerous, requiring the attention of military chemical weapons specialists, German officials said. Nearly two weeks later, the German government confirmed the doctors’ fears: Mr. Navalny had been poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent from the Novichok family, a potent class of chemical weapon developed by the Soviet Union that was used at least once before in recent years in an attack on a Kremlin enemy. After waking from a medically induced coma, Mr. Navalny would go on to say that the poison had been planted in his underwear at his hotel sometime before he boarded a flight in Siberia. He had traveled to the region to help organize opposition candidates before local elections. Russian officials denied that there was any evidence of poisoning, and a doctor in Omsk, the Siberian city where his plane had made an emergency landing, said that Mr. Navalny had suffered an “imbalance in carbohydrates,” possibly caused by low blood sugar. Mr. Navalny’s wife and personal doctor dismissed the diagnosis as ridiculous. Labs in Sweden, France and Germany later confirmed that he had been poisoned. Novichok, a Soviet-era weapon invented for military use, was used against Sergei V. Skripal, a former Soviet spy, and his daughter in a 2018 attack in Salisbury, England, that the British government attributed to Russia’s military intelligence arm, the G.R.U. In December 2020, four months after his poisoning, Mr. Navalny released a video of himself — posing as an aide to a senior Russian security official — that he said showed him phoning a Russian intelligence officer and duping him into confessing to a plot to kill the opposition leader. Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service called Mr. Navalny’s video a forgery, according to the RIA Novosti state news agency. The next month, despite facing an all-but-certain prison sentence, Mr. Navalny returned to Russia after spending months in Germany recovering from the poisoning attempt. He was arrested upon arrival in a Moscow airport. Just over two weeks later, he was handed a prison sentence that sent him to a penal colony. Navalny had continued to post on social media from prison by passing messages to his visiting lawyers. His most recent Instagram post was on Wednesday — Valentine’s Day — and it was a message to his wife, Yulia: We may be separated by “blue blizzards and thousands of kilometers,” he wrote, “but I feel that you are near me every second, and I keep loving you even more.” Navalny’s posts to Instagram — where he had nearly three million followers — showed how he remained a serious thorn in the Kremlin’s side, even from prison. On Feb. 1, he called on Russians opposed to Putin to show their resistance by going to the polls at exactly noon when Russia holds its presidential election in mid-March. Supporters of Navalny took to social media to express their disbelief. “Murder,” many wrote, but the sentiment running beneath a lot of the reactions was a loss of hope. Despite the long prison sentences imposed on him, many Russians who oppose the government still considered him the best hope for change. Putin is now appearing on state television, holding a Q&A with students and industrial workers at a factory in the Chelyabinsk region in the Ural Mountains. He hasn’t yet commented about Navalny. A Russian court handed Navalny a new, 19-year sentence last August on charges of supporting “extremism” and ordered him imprisoned under the harshest conditions. He then disappeared for three weeks in December as the Russian authorities transferred him to a remote penal colony in the Arctic. Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s longtime chief of staff, says he’s not ready to believe the news about Navalny’s death. “We have no reason to believe state propaganda,” Volkov wrote on the social platform X. “If this is true, then it’s not ‘Navalny died,’ but ‘Putin killed Navalny,’ and only that. But I don’t trust them one penny.” Мы не имеем никаких оснований верить госпропаганде. — Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) February 16, 2024 Если это правда, то не «Навальный умер», а «Путин убил Навального» и только так. Но я им не верю ни на копейку. On Russian state television, the host of a political talk show read out the prison service’s statement reporting Navalny’s death. “In any case, the most careful investigation will be done,” the host, Vyacheslav Nikonov, said on air. We still don’t have confirmation of Navalny’s death from his team, but the Russian authorities are reporting in near-unison that he has died. The Investigative Committee of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug — the Arctic region where Navalny’s prison is — issued a statement saying that it was conducting a “procedural check into the death of A.A. Navalny.” Navalny’s spokeswoman said on social media that his team could not immediately confirm his death. “We don’t have any confirmation of this yet,” the spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said, adding that a lawyer was traveling to the remote town where the prison is. “As soon as we have any information, we will report it.”

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