Alexey Navalny Was Too Brave to Be Allowed to Live Long

Alexey Navalny, who the Russian prison service says died on Friday, was a man as ambitious as he was spectacularly brave, punished for actions that would have been rewarded in other societies. All of those in the West who admire Vladimir Putin for his strength and anti-liberal values should take a long hard look, because Navalny’s fate is the true face of the Kremlin’s rule.

Navalny was arrested countless times for political protests, poisoned with a nerve agent, and jailed in effect for life on charges of “extremism.” In reality, he was punished for daring to oppose and expose Russia’s ruling kleptocracy. He had already outlived his life expectancy, not because he was unhealthy or, at 47, old, but rather because of the abuse he was subjected to in jail. He may well have fainted on a walk at his prison camp in northern Siberia, as the prison authority said, yet it’s all but certain that his death was caused by what was done to him before.