Some residual good news for courage in 2023: Alexei Navalny is alive and has been located in a distant prison colony. His team says the leading opponent of Vladimir Putin’s despotism was moved without announcement to a prison called the Polar Wolf in the remote Arctic region of Yamalo-Nenets. This a frozen, isolated area known for some of the most brutal conditions in the Putin-era gulag.
The context for his isolation is the Russian presidential election scheduled for March 17. There’s no chance Mr. Putin will lose in the rigged political system. But before Mr. Navalny disappeared, he and his team launched a campaign to expose that Mr. Putin is far less popular than the Kremlin claims.
In the runup to the elections “people are very sensitive to political information,” so there’s an opportunity “to talk to people” and “spread information about [Mr. Putin’s] crimes,” Kira Yarmysh, Mr. Navalny’s spokesperson, told us recently. “The idea is that many Russians are dissatisfied with what is going on, and it’s very important that they see they are not alone.”
Mr. Navalny’s chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, urged supporters of the campaign to “agitate ten people” each. The Anti-Corruption Foundation founded by Mr. Navalny has paid for billboards in several Russian cities with the words “Russia, Happy New Year”—and a QR code leading to an anti-Putin website.
One of the campaign’s arguments is that Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine has been a disaster for Russians. “Mobilization [has] taken the lives of our men,” but “Putin and his assistants are indifferent to our fate and how many people die,” one digital pamphlet argues. “Our children, grandchildren, brothers and husbands can be taken to the front at any time. Do you want your loved ones to die for Putin and his wealth?”
RUSSIA HAS LOST about 87% of its prewar force in Ukraine, with some 315,000 soldiers killed or injured, according to a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment. Even verbal opposition to the war is considered a crime, so Mr. Navalny’s campaign is a rare opportunity for Russians to express their frustration.
Mr. Navalny barely survived poisoning with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in 2020. He is a hero of Russian liberty, and he deserves the world’s attention.
— Wall Street Journal
