JRL NEWSWATCH: “Alexey Navalny Never Wanted to Be a Dissident” – Politico

“Once upon a time, Alexey Navalny wanted to be a normal politician in a normal country. Now that’s just a fantasy.”

[original article was adapted from “The Dissident: Alexey Navalny, Profile of a Political Prisoner,” released by Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.]

“… Navalny, despite decades crusading against Russian corruption and against … Putin’s increasingly dictatorial rule, never wanted to be known as a dissident. Instead, Navalny — Putin’s most reviled rival — has long presented himself as a man of the people [] and … future president …. His aversion to the dissident label — especially to being tagged as a dissident in exile — was so strong that, in January 2021, after five months recovering in Germany from a nearly fatal assassination attempt … [involving] a chemical weapon, Navalny insisted on returning to Moscow despite the certainty that he would be arrested. He believed it was the only way to sustain his political career … that he would not be seen as a legitimate [political] contender … if he took refuge outside Russia. He also wanted to show his supporters that he was not afraid — maintaining credibility when he urged them not to be afraid to protest Putin. It was a grave miscalculation ….”

Click here for: “Alexey Navalny Never Wanted to Be a Dissident; Once upon a time, Alexey Navalny wanted to be a normal politician in a normal country. Now that’s just a fantasy.” – Politico/ David M. Herszenhorn

[featured Navalny image at upper left is file photo from another occasion, adapted from original image at commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FEV_1795_(cropped1).jpg by Evgeny Feldman, subject to Creative Commons license, with licensing information at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en and creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode]