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The death of Alexei Navalny cannot but appear as a death of one dissident too many. It has reinforced the view that in Russia under Vladimir Putin a political dissident is a doomed person, whether inside the country or in exile. Their deaths are foretold in chronicles the moment they cross swords with the present autocratic ruler of Russia who seem to be pathologically predisposed towards to those who oppose the system he has put in place after taking power or to him as a ruler. The cases of mysterious deaths of dissidents abroad through poisoning or abortive attempts to do so have been grist to the mill of the rumour about the revival of a totalitarian state in the mould of Stalinist Russia. The death of Navalny, the most high profile dissident in Russia in recent time, can be said to have carved this image in stone.
The Russian authorities have done nothing so far to dispel the widespread suspicion that President Putin's hand is behind the unnatural death of Navalny. No official condolence has been announced mourning the death of the deceased as is de reguire. The dead body has not been not yet been handed over to the next in kin as is done normally. His mother, who is in Russia, has not been allowed to see the dead body after several attempts made in the morgue in the penal colony where the corpse is lying. No credible investigation has been initiated yet to find out the causes of Navalny's death. The mourners who came to place wreaths in the monument of Fallen Heroes in Moscow have been discouraged to do so and hundreds of protesters have been hauled away by police. All these incidents inexorably point to the fact that the present regime in Russia is chary about being transparent over the sudden death of Navalny.
If the Russians now try to pass off Navalny's death as natural it will be difficult to make it appear as credible. At the age of 47, he was almost a young man. He looked healthy and was known to have no underlying health conditions. So any explanation that he suddenly fell ill is not convincing. On the other hand, the proven case of poisoning in 2020 while under arrest and his subsequent recovery after treatment in Germany proved that he was a marked man whose days were numbered. Even the Shakespearean expression 'murder most foul' will not be enough to describe the gruesome way in which Navalny was despatched to the other world.
The news about Navalny's death in the arctic penal colony has been the most juicy meat available recently for the American-led alliance to vilify and demonise Russia as the public enemy number one of the peace loving world community. Navalny's death came very handy to them and just in time when their complicity in civilization's most brutal genocide in Gaza has been exposed. They lost no time in raising a chorus of condemnation against Russia's evil empire which pose a threat to world peace. The agenda in the recent Munich Security Conference was superseded and dominated by the Navalny case as if it was a security issue. As a result, the more pressing issue of the carnage going in Gaza and the imminent bloodbath in Rafah were given short shrifts. The Munich Security Conference was transformed in to an ant- Russian meet to bolster the armed strengthen of Ukraine which was portrayed as the country standing up to the evil empire of Vladimir Putin. In the wake of the emotion stirred up over the death of Navalny more aid was pledged by the American-led alliance to boost up Ukraine's sagging offensive capability. Navalny's death in incarceration was condemned at the conference but not as a case of violation of human rights. He was politicised to sway world public opinion against Russia, and particularly the home constituencies of the Alliance members who have become tired at the endless pumping of aid in the name of avenging the aggression of Russia in Ukraine. Ukraine is now the main siphon through which the arms industries in the West are minting and channelling money and the merchants of death lost no time in picking up Navalny's death as an excuse to convince the lawmakers to loosen the purse strings . If the alleged 'murder' of Navalny has caused revulsion against Russian authorities, the blatant exploitation of his death by America and its allies has been nothing less than opportunistic and immoral.
The suspected role of Russia in the death of Alexei Navalny has shocked even its supporters in the present world order. Tired of the domination of America in a unipolar world after the termination of the cold war, many countries were looking for a counterweight to the hegemony of American-led West. When Vladimir Putin took up the reins of his country as the chief executive and started reshaping policies in the mould of a great power the former non-aligned countries sighed a breath of relief. Putin and his country were hailed as the challengers of a world order that was being shaped in the image of America. Countries in the non- Western bloc were looking for a world power that would dare to call America on its bluffs. Tired of America's highhandedness and arrogance of power that destabilised the world order, whether in the realm of security (regime change) or trade (protective tariff), non-aligned countries looked upon Putin's Russia to redress the balance in global financial and trade architectures. America's subversion of global institutions to serve its interests had gone so far that appearance of Vladimir Putin seemed like the resurrection of the Messiah to many countries. But to justify that veneration and to redeem the pledge of restoring order in a world gone haywire after the end of cold war assumed an exemplary role from the new leader. Unfortunately, Putin has disappointed his supporters in this regard with his highly corrupt and authoritarian methods. Under his watch oligarchs thrived, siphoning off ill-earned wealth to the West making inequality between the rich and poor in Russia one of the worst. Allegations of amassing personal wealth through corrupt means by Putin and his acolytes have been rife for quite some time. On the other hand, his treatment of opposition parties and dissidents has been anything but exemplary. He has allegedly ordered the murder of dissidents even when they fled abroad to live in exile. The death of Navalny, if it is proved to be a cold blooded murder, may not be the last nail in the coffin of Russia's autocracy but it will diminish the stature of Putin further and through it the standing of Russia as the promoter of a new world order.
There is still time for President Putin to try to rise to the expectations of the non-aligned world and behave as a world leader who can be trusted. As long as America continues on its path of superpower arrogance and blatant self-righteousness there will always be a vacuum to be filled up. Vladimir Putin's Russia can still slide into the role if he mends his way. For a starter, the abolition of the arctic penal colony where Navalny died in captivity will signal a change in governance away from the Stalin-era terror state that Russia seems to have morphed into. If this is accompanied with an independent investigation into the death of Navalny Putin's administration can prove that there was no foul play. If Russia wants to become a major world power in a multipolar world, enjoying support of the non-aligned countries, a makeover of its style of governance is urgently required.