Defiant Navalny has opposed Putin's war in Ukraine from prison. His team fear for his safety - CNN

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CNN  — 

Surviving President Vladimir Putin’s poisoners was conscionable a warm-up, not a warning, for Russian absorption person Alexey Navalny. But his defiance, according to his governmental team, has enactment him successful a contention against clip with the Russian autocrat.

The question, according to Navalny’s main investigator, Maria Pevchikh, is whether helium tin outlast Putin and his warfare successful Ukraine – and connected that the verdict is inactive out. “So far, interaction wood, they haven’t gone up with trying to termination him again,” she told CNN.

On January 17, 2021, undaunted and freshly recovered from an effort connected his beingness 5 months earlier – a adjacent lethal dose of the deadly nervus cause Novichok delivered by Putin’s henchmen – Navalny boldly boarded a formation taking him close backmost into the Kremlin’s hands.

By then, Navalny had go Putin’s nemesis. So beardown is the Russian leader’s aversion to his challenger that adjacent to this time helium refuses to accidental his name.

As Navalny stepped disconnected the formation from Berlin onto the frigid tarmac astatine Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airdrome that snowy evening, helium knew precisely what helium was getting into. Just weeks earlier leaving Germany, helium told CNN: “I recognize that Putin hates me, I recognize that radical successful the Kremlin are acceptable to kill.”

Navalny’s way to knowing had travel astatine a precocious cost. He knew successful intimate and excruciating item precisely however adjacent helium had travel to decease astatine the hands of Putin’s poisoners portion connected the governmental run way successful Siberia to enactment section candidates.

As helium recovered successful Berlin from the August 2020 assassination attempt, Navalny and his ace probe squad – acting connected immoderate originative sleuthing by investigative outfit Bellingcat and CNN – figured retired who his would-be killers were and discovered they’d been tailing him connected Putin’s orders for implicit 3 years.

So elaborate was Navalny’s cognition that, posing arsenic an authoritative with Russia’s National Security Council, helium was capable to telephone 1 of the would-be killers, who promptly confessed to lacing Navalny’s underwear with the banned nervus cause Novichok.

The information work agent, 1 of a ample squad from the feared FSB, the Soviet KGB’s modern replacement, adjacent offered a critique of their failed execution bid. He told Navalny he’d survived lone due to the fact that the level carrying him diverted for aesculapian help erstwhile helium became sick, and suggested that the assassination effort mightiness person succeeded connected a longer flight.

When challenged face-to-face astatine the doorway of his Moscow flat by CNN’s Clarissa Ward, who on with journalists from Der Spiegel and The Insider had besides helped successful the investigation, the cause swiftly unopen himself inside. Russia has repeatedly denied immoderate engagement successful the effort connected Navalny’s life.

When Putin was asked if he’d tried to person Navalny killed, helium smirked, saying: “If determination was specified a desire, it would person been done.”

Despite his denials, Putin’s tendency was transparent: Navalny’s magnetism was positioning him arsenic the Russian leader’s biggest governmental threat.

Today helium is the best-known anti-Putin person successful Russia and is putting his beingness connected the enactment to interruption Putin’s stranglehold implicit Russians.

Navalny’s team, who are successful self-imposed exile for their safety, judge their brag is successful a contention for endurance against Putin.

Pevchikh, who heads Navalny’s investigative squad and helped winkle retired his would-be assassins, says the warfare successful Ukraine – which Navalny has condemned from his situation compartment down bars – volition bring Putin down. The question, she says, is whether Navalny tin past Putin. “It’s a spot of a race. You know, astatine this point, who lasts longer?”

Navalny’s astir contiguous incarceration aft landing from Germany and his consequent detention successful 1 of Russia’s astir unsafe jails prisons – helium was moved successful June to a maximum-security situation facility successful Melekhovo, successful the Vladimir portion – is nary surprise.

What is singular is that contempt each carnal and intelligence stroke Putin’s brutal penal authorities has dealt him, Navalny inactive refuses to beryllium silenced.

Even portion down bars, his Instagram and Twitter accounts support up his attacks connected Putin. “He passes hundreds of notes and we benignant them up,” Pevchikh says. She didn’t specify however the notes were relayed.

But it’s not without cost: With each trumped-up crook of Putin’s tortuous ineligible machinations, Navalny has had to combat for adjacent basal rights similar boots and medication. His wellness has suffered, helium has mislaid weight.

His daughter, Dasha Navalnaya, presently studying astatine Stanford University successful California, told CNN helium is being systematically singled retired for harsh treatment.

Prison authorities are repeatedly cycling him successful and retired of solitary confinement, she says. “They enactment him successful for a week, past instrumentality him retired for 1 day,” to effort to interruption him, she said. “People are not allowed to pass with him, and this benignant of isolation is truly purely intelligence torture.”

His carnal treatment, she said, is conscionable arsenic horrendous. “It’s a tiny cell, six (or) seven-by-eight feet… a cage for idiosyncratic who is of his six-foot-three height,” she told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “He lone has 1 robust stool, which is sewed to the floor. And retired of idiosyncratic possessions helium is allowed to have: a mug, a toothbrush, and 1 book.”

In the past fewer days, Navalny’s lawyer has said helium has a “temperature, fever and a cough.” He hasn’t seen a doc yet and his squad is struggling to get medicine to him successful his isolation cell.

His woman Yulia, who says she received a missive from Navalny connected Wednesday, has besides raised concerns astir his health. She says helium has been sick for implicit a week, and that helium is not getting attraction and is forced disconnected his sick furniture during the day.

At slightest 531 Russian doctors arsenic of Wednesday had signed an unfastened missive addressed to Putin to request that Navalny should beryllium provided with indispensable aesculapian assistance, according to the Facebook station wherever the missive was published.

His household haven’t seen him since May past twelvemonth and his girl fears what whitethorn travel next. “This is 1 of the astir unsafe and celebrated precocious information prisons successful Russia known for torturing and murdering the inmates,” she said.

In his past moments of state arsenic constabulary grabbed him astatine Sheremetyevo airdrome connected his instrumentality to Russia astir 2 years ago, Navalny kissed his woman Yulia goodbye.

Outside, riot constabulary bushed backmost the crowds who’d travel to invited them home. It was the opening of a caller section successful Navalny’s struggle, 1 helium is alert helium whitethorn not survive.

Before leaving Germany, he’d recorded a connection astir what to bash if the worst happened: “My connection for the concern erstwhile I americium killed is precise simple: not springiness up… The lone happening indispensable for the triumph of evil is for bully radical to bash nothing. So don’t beryllium inactive.”

When Navalny appeared successful a Moscow tribunal aft his apprehension astatine the airport, the immense standard of his problems was conscionable opening to go apparent. He was defiant; chopped disconnected from the satellite wrong a cage successful the crowded court, helium signaled his emotion to his woman conscionable yards distant successful the tiny room.

The proceedings itself was a farce. He was handed a two-and-a-half-year jailhouse condemnation for allegedly breaking the presumption of his probation successful an old, politically motivated case.

The courtroom theatre was a typically Putinesque twist of Russia’s easy manipulated judicial process. Navalny’s alleged probation usurpation came arsenic helium laic incapacitated successful the Berlin infirmary recovering from the Novichok poisoning helium and Western officials blasted connected the Kremlin.

If the tribunal process successful Putin’s Russia was a surreal circus, jailhouse was to beryllium its brutal duplicate wherever the Russian person hoped to interruption Navalny’s will.

But acold from defeated, and a lawyer by training, Navalny fought for his basal situation rights done ineligible challenges.

After his sentencing, Navalny went connected a hunger strike, complaining helium was being deprived of slumber by situation guards who kept waking him up. He began suffering wellness issues and demanded due aesculapian attention.

Against a backdrop of planetary outrage, Navalny was moved to a situation hospital; meantime Moscow’s courts moved to person him declared a violent oregon extremist and Putin unopen down his governmental operations crossed the country.

In January 2022 Navalny appealed this designation, but aft different six months of judicial theatre helium lost.

And determination were much charges. In March that year, helium was convicted of yet much trumped-up charges – contempt of tribunal and embezzlement – and helium was transferred to Melekhovo’s maximum information penal colony IK-6, hundreds of miles from Moscow.

At each turn, Navalny fought back, threatening successful November 2022 to writer situation authorities for withholding wintertime boots, and, astir recently, mounting a ineligible situation to cognize what situation medics person been injecting him with.

Putin’s efforts to interruption him person nary bounds, Navalny has said, describing his months successful a punitive punishment compartment arsenic an effort to “shut maine up.” Often, helium has been made to stock the tiny abstraction with a convict who has superior hygiene issues, helium said connected Twitter.

Navalny says helium saw it for what it was: Putin’s callous usage of people. “What particularly infuriates maine is the instrumentalization of a surviving person, turning him into a unit tool,” helium said.

But his suffering is paying off, according to Pevechikh. “We person had a precise palmy twelvemonth successful presumption of our organization,” she said. “We are present 1 of the astir loud, anti-war, anti-war media that determination is available.”

It’s the information Navalny returned to Russia that persuades radical helium is genuine, she said. “The level of hazard that helium takes connected himself personally… is precise impressive,” she said. “And I would ideate that our assemblage recognises that.”

Perhaps due to the fact that of this, but surely contempt the much than 700 days successful jail, wherever helium remains taxable to Putin’s vindictive whims, Navalny’s tone seems strong.

At New Year helium made airy of his inhumane treatment, saying connected Instagram that helium had enactment up Christmas decorations he’d been sent successful a missive from his family. When the guards took them down, helium said, “the temper remained.”

His squad posted a poignant photoshopped representation of him with his household – a mode of keeping live their New Year contented of being unneurotic – and quoted Navalny arsenic saying: “I tin consciousness the threads and wires going to my wife, children, parents, brother, each the radical closest to me.”

His New Year connection to his galore supporters is some stark and sincere: “Thank you each truthful overmuch for your enactment this year. It hasn’t stopped for a minute, not adjacent for a second, and I’ve felt it.”

For what acheronian horrors Putin whitethorn yet take to sojourn connected him, adjacent the resilient Navalny volition request each the enactment helium tin get.