Alexei Anatolievich Navalny is a lawyer, a wide-known anti-corruption blogger, and a protest leader. He founded the Fund for Combatting Corruption (FBK) and heads the Progress Party. Previously he boarded airline company Aeroflot and took part in Moscow’s mayoral election in 2013 with the second place.
The Russian anti-corruption protest leader Alexei Navalny
Navalny’s main mission is to confront corruption. The FBK’s most high-profile case correlates with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s «secret empire». The picture «Don’t call him Dimon» was viewed 25 million times via Youtube.
In 2013, Navalny was set for trial in a case with Kirovles. However, three years later the European Court of Human Rights had declared the case as politicized and entitled the conviction to be reviewed. Nevertheless, the court rendered the guilty verdict.
In December 2016, Navalny stated his intention to take part in the presidential election in 2018.
Childhood and Education
Alexei Navalny was born in a small military town near Moscow, called Butyn. His father, Anatoly Navalny, was born in Chernobyl district, graduated from the Kiev Military Institute and took a commission in Moscow. His mother, Lyudmila Ivanovna, has grown in a village near Zelenograd, graduated from the institute, and worked as a lab tech in a Research Institute producing microelectronics. Later on, she worked in the timber processing industry.
Alexei Navalny in childhood and nowadays
In 1994, the young man graduated from Alabino school in the suburban village Kalininets and entered the law faculty of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. He missed one point for admission to MSU. In 1999, he became a student of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation and studied at the faculty of Finance and credit. In 2001, he got a diploma in Securities and Stock Exchanges.
Alexei Navalny with mother, aunt, and brother
Much later, in 2010, he was awarded the Yale World Fellows training scholarship. Each year, the University selects about 15 talented people, mostly immigrants from the third world, and invites to Yale to study the global problems of our society for six months.
Professional Activity and Business
While studying in PFUR Navalny occupied the job of a lawyer in the Aeroflot Bank. In 1997, he registered Ltd. «Allekt». In 1998, he began working at «ST-group» belonging to the Chigirinsky brothers. There he worked for about a year and was engaged in currency control and Antimonopoly legislation. In 1999, Navalny left «ST-group» and got a lawyer diploma.
Public and Political Activity
In 2000, Alexei Navalny has joined the Russian democratic party Yabloko and became a member of the Federal political council of the party. Two years later, he was elected to the regional council of Yabloko’s Moscow department. From 2004 to 2007, Navalny headed the Moscow office of the party.
Alexei Navalny was a member of the party Yabloko
In 2007, Navalny was expelled from Yabloko. The reason was specified as causing political damage to the party, in particular, with the nationalistic activity. As Navalny claimed, the real reason for his exclusion was his requirement of the resignation of Yabloko’s leader Grigory Yavlinsky.
5 facts about Alexey Navalny
In 2004, Navalny founded a Committee of Muscovites Protection. This is a citywide movement acting against corruption in the sphere of urban development and violation of the citizens’ rights. A year later, Alex along with other people rooted a new youth movement called «YES!». He also was coordinating the project «The Police with Nation».
The Committee of Muscovites Protection’s meeting
Since 2006, Navalny coordinated the project «The Political Debate» and was the chief editor of the Fight club show on TVC.
Alexei Navalny adheres to nationalist views
In 2009, Navalny was employed the part-time manager adviser of the Kirov region Governor Nikita Belykh, who was arrested on charges of accepting bribes in the summer of 2016.
Anti-Corruption Activities
In May 2008, Navalny announced in his blog he and his like-minded fellows intend to find out why the trader Gunvor sells the oil of major Russian state-owned companies. According to Alexey, he appealed to the leaders of «Rosneft», «Surgutneftegaz» and «Gazprom Neft», but received no explanation. By the way, Navalny is a minority shareholder of the companies «Surgutneftegaz», «Rosneft», «Gazprom Neft», and «VTB».
Yury Chaika and corruption
At the end of 2010, Navalny announced the creation of the project RosPll, which was intended to depress abuses in public procurement. By May 2011, the project reported the discovery of the fraud in the sphere of governmental procurement in the amount of 1.6 billion rubles. Meanwhile, the RosPll employees stopped the machinations with 337 million rubles. The project was awarded by The BOBs, the international blog competition, as the most useful resource to society.
Navalny is often accused of cooperation with European and USA special services
In 2011, Navalny registered Fund for Combatting Corruption (FBK). The fund was sponsored by the economist Sergei Guriev, businessmen Vladimir Ashurkov and Boris Zimin.
In mid-2011, Alexei Navalny launched an Internet project RosYama within the FBK, which was supposed to encourage the Russian authorities to improve the condition of roads in the country. Users could post there the photos of the damaged roads. After that, the system generated complaints in the traffic police. If there was no answer by the deadline, the RosYama employees sent a letter to the Prosecutor.
In the beginning of 2012, Navalny and his team launched the project RosVybory to observe the presidential elections. 17 thousand observers took part in the project.
Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov
The head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin got many times under the scope of the FBK. The fund found out that he possesses a luxury cottage near Domodedovo with several dozen of hectares. Most of the Internet users were shocked by a separate room given over to the keep shubas.
FBK has discovered the secret cottage of Yakunin
The private jet of Igor Shuvalov, discovered by Navalny, made a lot of fuss. Igor used the jet to transport his dogs Welsh Corgi breed for exhibitions. Meanwhile, he bought many apartments on one floor of a luxury skyscraper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment. The total cost of the apartments is estimated at 600 million rubles.
Navalny has found the private jet of Shuvalov
Moscow mayoral election
Alexei Navalny declared his candidacy for Moscow mayor leadership in the early 2013 elections from the party RPR–Parnas.
Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin commented on Navalny’s actions in the following way: «To be honest, I don't know what are the prospects of the candidate Navalny. We have done everything possible to register his to elections so that the Muscovites have a wider selection among the candidates in Moscow mayors».
Navalny took the 2nd place in the Moscow mayoral election
However, the results of the population vote Alexei Navalny took second place with 27.24% of the vote.
The Prosecution. Kirovles Case
On 5 December 2011, the next day after the elections to the State Duma, Alexei Navalny spoke at a sanctioned protest meeting on Chistoprudny Boulevard. Muscovites that joined the meeting were disagreed with the election results and put forward allegations of fraud to the electoral Commission and the United Russia party.
Alexei Navalny at the meeting on Chistoprudny Boulevard
After this meeting, Navalny and his team went on an unsanctioned March to the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, where he was arrested by the police. The next day, Navalny was found guilty of resisting law enforcement officers and sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. Navalny was set free on December 21.
May 9, 2012, Navalny was again sentenced to arrest for 15 days. This time for participating in an illegal public event on Kudrinskaya square, the so-called Folk festivals, which became the sign of mass protest against the dispersal of the March of millions that took place earlier on May 6. The marchers were unhappy with the fact the inauguration of Vladimir Putin. Navalny appealed to the European Court Of Human Rights for this detention and arrest.
Pictures from the March of millions (6.05.2012)
In May 2011, Alexei Navalny has filed a criminal case under article 165 of the criminal code – «causing property damage by deception or abuse of trust». It was about the fact that Navalny and entrepreneur Peter Ofitserov, the owner of the Vyatka-Forest, Ltd, allegedly misled the Kirovles Director Vyacheslav Opalev. As a result, he signed a disadvantageous for his enterprise contract and suffered damages of 16 million rubles.
Navalny denied the charges, citing the partisanship of the case, as shortly before this he presented in his blog the information about Transneft, and also accused Opalev in «creating unthinkable schemes» for the sale of logging. According to Navalny, he has achieved dismissal of Opalev and a complete audit of Kirovles, which was the reason for initiation of the case.
Navalny: «Putin is the Tsar or corruption»
After the proceedings, the case was dismissed on 10 April 2012. The reason was the absence of corpus delicti. Later it was resumed by order of the Kirovles leaders. However, on 29 May of the same year, the decision to dismiss the case was canceled.
The case again came to court in April 2013. The testimony of the prosecution witnesses talked about the fact that the cooperation of Kirovles with VLK was unprofitable for the first. However, the VLK partners testified that the logs they were shipped they bought at market prices, and they have no complaints to both defendants. Addressing the court, the Governor of the Kirov region Belykh also said that the VLK activities did not detrimental to the region budget.
18 July 2013, Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine (500 thousand rubles). Ofitserov was sentenced to four years in prison and a similar fine. The sentence was made during Navalny’s election campaign in the mayoral election.
Navalny was found guilty in the case of Kirovles
During the next day of the appeal hearing sent by Navalny and Ofitserov were released on their own recognizance. Further case consideration discovered irregularities in obtaining convictions, and the real-time sentence was replaced to conventional while maintaining the fine.
Alexei Navalny appealed to the ECHR, which in February 2016 confirmed the fact of violation of the rights of people accused in the case of Kirovles. However, it didn’t recognize the case as politically motivated, as Navalny and Ofitserov’s lawyers urged.
At the end of 2016, the court again began consideration of the case of Kirovles. The new sentence, according to Navalny, repeated the previous word to word. The accused were again sentenced to 4 and 5 years of probation. On the same day, the ECHR condemned the verdict, calling the whole process’s mission to exclude Navalny from the political process of the country.
2016–2020
In December 2016, Navalny announced that he intends to take part in the presidential elections of 2018, thereby launching his campaign, during which he, together with like-minded people has opened several campaign offices in the largest cities of Russia.
In March 2017, the FBK has posted on YouTube a 50-minute film «Don’t call him Dimon» representing the investigation of a multi-level corruption scheme of Dmitry Medvedev. Three weeks later, mass meetings were held all across Russia. The participants demanded answers from Medvedev about the information contained in the video.
Alexey Navalny: «Don't call him Dimon» (English subs)
On March 26, during an unauthorized protest meeting on Tverskaya street, Alexei Navalny was detained by police. He was fined (20 thousand rubles) for organizing an unsanctioned meeting, and assigned to 15 days of administrative arrest for «resistance to a lawful demand of a police officer».
Alexei Navalny in court after the meeting in Tverskaya street
June 12, Russia saw the second wave of opposition meetings. This time, Alex did not have time to get out of the house, as he was detained by the police in the corridor. Moscow Simonovsky District Court arrested him for 30 days, accusing him of repeated violation of the rules of conducting meetings. In the evening of 11 June, he urged supporters to go to unsanctioned March on Tverskaya street, where constructors held a festival at that time. At first, the protesting must go to Sakharov Avenue. More than 800 people were detained during the opposition meeting in Moscow.
In 2018 Alexei Navalny tried to become a candidate in the presidential elections, but the government didn't allow it in a pretty illegal way in a last moment. But his campaign has an effective result – all Russia was covered by his headquarters. Their members are mostly young people who want to change Russia for the better. They make their own anti-corruption investigations in regions.
Alexei Navalny with his supporters
In Summer 2019 there were mass elections in Russian legislative institutions such as Moscow City Duma. Navalny created a "Smart Vote" concept to defeat candidates from the pro-Putin party "United Russia". Also, his supporter Lubov Sobol tried to run for Moscow City Duma deputy but was refused without any legal reasons, as well as many others candidates from the opposition. This was a cause of 2019 Moscow Summer protests, which were stopped by police in a very violent way.
Moscow protests in 2019
In July of 2020, Alexei Navalny announced the closure of the Anti-Corruption Fund and called on all supporters who had sent money earlier to redirect regular payments. The main reason for the closure of the fund, Alexei named the decision of the Arbitration Court of Moscow, according to which FBK must pay in favor of one of the Moscow companies about 29 million rubles. Alexey also said that the company will move to another legal entity.
Alexei Navalny’s Private Life
Alexey Navalny is married. The opposition leader's wife’s name is Julia, maiden surname Abrosimova. They met at a Turkey resort in 1999.
The couple has two children: daughter Daria (born 2001) and son Zachary (born in 2008).
Alexey and Yulia Navalny’s wedding picture
For a long time, the couple lived in a small apartment in one of the prefabricated houses on the Lublinstreet, Marino. However, in late 2016, the opposition leader said that he is looking for housing for rent, as his grown-up children became too cramped to live in one room.
Navalny with his wife and children
In 2019 his daughter Daria enrolled at Stanford University.
Daria Navalny study in Stanford
Poisoning of Alexei Navalny
According to Zoomboola.com, in August 20, 2020, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny was established on board an aircraft flying from Tomsk to Moscow. The politician got sick right during the flight - Alexey went to the restroom and lost consciousness there, uttering screams before that. After being hospitalized Alexei fell into a coma and was connected to a ventilator. Soon, Navalny's wife managed to get him transported to a university hospital in Berlin.
Transportation of Alexey Navalny
In late August and early September, an investigation is underway into the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Poisons were found in the politician's body, and on September 3 it became known that intoxication with Novichok poison was the cause of the poisoning. According to the doctors, Alexei will have to be treated for a very long time. At the moment he is still in a coma, and his condition is assessed as consistently serious.
On September 7, 2020, Alexei Navalny was taken out of a coma and disconnected from mechanical ventilation. It was reported that the politician was already breathing on his own and responding to someone else's speech.
After discharge from the hospital, Alexey didn’t hide his intentions to come back to Russia. In December, while Navalny temporary lived and got treatment in Berlin, investigation media Bellingcat named his poisoners, FSS officers with medical and chemistry education. Journalists used an information from leaked databases.
Alexey Navalny after coming out of a coma
A week after, Alexey posted a video on YouTube with a phone call to one of his poisoners, Konstantin Kudryavtsev form FSS. Kudryavtsev didn't recognize a trap and confirmed the information about Novichok inadvertently. In particular the FSS officer said, he put the poison on "codpiece part of Navalny’s underwear". According to Kudryavtsev, Navalny had survived just because his plane landed on time and an ambulance injected him atropine. Press called this incident "a codpiecegate".
Navalny calling to his poisoner
Come back to Russia
While Alexey was undergoing treatment in Germany, Russian Federal Penitentiary Service had claims to Navalny's compliance with the rules of probation in the case of Yves Rosher. He didn’t fulfill all the requirements of FPS and "avoided the control of the inspection" because he was in coma.
On 30 of December, one day before the end of his probation, FPS demanded to replace the probation by jail.
On 17 of January, Alexey back to Moscow. More than 2 thousand of his supporters gathered in Vnukovo airport, where his plane should have landed. But at the last time the plane turn back and landed in Sheremetyevo airport. Navalny was arrested on passport control and delivered to police department in Khimki. The next day he had a court right in the police department. It was a precedent for the Russian judicial system. Journalists didn’t allow to the proceeding, except journalists of pro-Kremlin "Life" and "Russia 24" media.
Navalny`s supporters in Vnukovo
The court decided to arrest him. Navalny was jailed to Detention center before the end of the trial. The trial took place on 2 of February. The court decided to replace the probation by jail. Navalny was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Navalny in prison
Navalny was sent to Corrective labor colony in Pokrov, Vladymir Region which is well-known for a very hard order. Very soon, Alexey felt problems with his health. The right leg began to fail, then the numbness spread to other limbs.
Alexey before the prison
Already at the trial in the case of insulting the veteran Artemenko (earlier, Navalny called “toadies “all the people who starred in the commercial in support of amendments to the Constitution, among whom was the WW2 front-line soldier) it was noticeable that the oppositionist suffering from pain from any movement.
All Russian opposition ‘s demands to let Navalny been watched by doctor were ignored, despite the unequivocal reaction of Western countries and numerous open letters addressed personally to Putin. One of these appeals was signed by world-famous stars, including JK Rowling, Thom Yorke, Stephen Fry and Benedict Cumberbatch. On March 31, 2021, Alexei Navalny went on a hunger strike, leaving only water in his diet.
Navalny in the court
In the middle of April, Alexey’s medical tests were leaked to the internet. He had extremely low substance of potassium and that was a huge threat of soon heart stop. Navalny’s supporters announced the new protest meeting. On 19 of April Alexey was transferred to the regional hospital for convicts.
In the end of 2021 Navalny gave a long interview to New York Times where told about Putin's further plans and his view on future of Russia.
Putin is not eternal, physically or politically. What is important is this: The Putin regime is an historical accident, not an inevitability. It was the choice of the corrupt Yeltsin family. Sooner or later, this mistake will be fixed and Russia will move on to a democratic, European path of development. Simply because that is what the people want.
Alexey Navalny, NY Times
On 22 of March 2022, Alexey was found guilty in the case of contempt of court and in the case of fraud - the court ruled that Navalny embezzled the FBK donations. He was sentenced to 9 years in a strict regime colony and a fine of 1.2 million rubles.
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Jon Barnes
During all the time checking all the politicians, Navalny started to pay more attention to not real politic guys but trying to find witches of the government.
2021-05-12 11:51:15
Amy Craig
Alexey Navalny has a natural intelligence, even on marches and protests he is always staying a human.
2021-04-20 18:32:35
Herbert Anderson
He is a real man with right priorities. Navalny is really fighting against corruption and not only talking about it.
2021-03-25 18:00:53
Jessica Garcia
In my opinion Alexey is a very intelligent and literate man with right positions and priorities of life.
2021-03-09 19:41:17
Richard Arnold
Nowadays Navalny it`s not just a last name but he is a symbol of opposition and fight against corruption.
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Jon Barnes
2021-05-12 11:51:15
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Amy Craig
2021-04-20 18:32:35
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Herbert Anderson
2021-03-25 18:00:53
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Jessica Garcia
2021-03-09 19:41:17
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Richard Arnold
2021-02-18 20:47:20
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