February 16 - Remembrance Day For Alexey Navalny, Nationalist, Populist, Russian Patriot, Murdered By VV Putin, Globalist Corporatist Dictator Of Russia
On February 16, 2024, Putin murdered Alexei Navalny. One year later, on this day, Alexei’s supporters around the world are organizing memorial events, services, and other important gatherings. We must show that Alexei Navalny will never be forgotten, that we will never forgive, and that we will continue the fight he gave his life for.
We’ve compiled a list of memorial events—join us in remembering Alexei. If you’d like to organize an event in your city or if yours isn’t listed yet, please reach out to our coordinator, Elena: t.me/elena_acf.If you’d like to share photos or videos taken on this day, send them to our bot: t.me/teamnavalny_bot.On February 16, we will host a live broadcast to reflect on Navalny’s work, speak with his friends and colleagues, honor his memory, and stand together in solidarity.
(You can get English, German, or even Zulu subtitles for this video by clicking on CC - closed captions - in the lower right hand corner - after you click on the video to play it)
A year ago, Alexei Navalny was murdered. Putin wants the world to forget him—his courage, his fight against a criminal regime. We will not let that happen.
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Here’s one of Navalny’s documentaries - which explains why Putin hated him and could not bear to hear his name or to say it:
And I couldn’t put it down, I read the first 100 pages on Monday, the second 120 pages Tuesday, and the final 260 pages on Christmas Day, the only thing stopping me from continuing on, on those previous days, was fatigue from vacuuming up mounds and mounds of leaves from my yard & lugging around a really great leaf vacuum/shredder and mulcher, and depositing the leaves, dirt, and twigs on a now three foot tall mound, roughly ten feet by fifteen feet, where, like in previous years, it will turn into rich black dirt suitable for putting back into the yard along with grass seed and hopefully some catalpa starts from the catalpa tree in back of the kitchen. Perhaps an oak or two as well, I have two oak trees planted by the 100 year old oak tree in back of the house, one is ten years old and higher than the roof of the house, out by the garage, one is about 7 years old and is in front of the house and nearly as tall - and I’ve pruned both to ensure that they will grow straight and tall and so far they have…
The book is Patriot, the memoir/autobiography of Alexei Navalny (https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Memoir-Alexei-Navalny/dp/0593320964), a great Russian patriot who loved his country but who despised its government - a government which is in the middle of wrecking the country, killing its people and the people of other countries, looting its resources, and enriching its supporters and lackeys, chief amongst them V. V. Putin, whose name will go down in infamy as the murderer of Navalny and so many tens of thousands more, both in Russia and in the countries whose resources Putin and his mafia are trying to steal or have stolen.
Navalny, before he was poisoned and not killed, then imprisoned in increasingly harsher conditions and then in February 2024, murdered, sought to break Russia away from this path to ruin and destruction, by means of the creation of documentaries, a regular web log, and electoral politics - and the creation of his Anti-Corruption Foundation to fight the lies and pervasive corruption and incompetence in the Russian government, at all levels:
Navalny’s Manifesto - A Series Of Twitter Posts Made For Him While Imprisoned
“On the eve of the anniversary of the full-scale and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, I have summarized the political platform of mine and, hopefully, of many other decent people.
15 theses of a Russian citizen who desires the best for their country.
Alexey Navalny @navalny Feb 20, 2023
What was all this about and what are we dealing with now?
1. President Putin has unleashed an unjust war of aggression against Ukraine under ridiculous pretexts. He is desperately trying to make this a "people's war," seeking to turn all Russian citizens into his accomplices, but his attempts are failing. There are almost no volunteers for this war, so Putin's army has to rely on convicts and forcibly mobilized people.
2. The real reasons for this war are the political and economic problems within Russia, Putin's desire to hold on to power at any cost, and his obsession with his own historical legacy. He wants to go down in history as "the conqueror tsar" and "the collector of lands."
3. Tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians have been murdered, and pain and suffering has befallen millions more. War crimes have been committed. Ukrainian cities and infrastructure have been destroyed.
4. Russia is suffering a military defeat. It was the realization of this fact that changed the rhetoric of the authorities from claims that "Kyiv will fall in three days" to hysterical threats of using nuclear weapons should Russia lose. The lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were needlessly ruined. The ultimate military defeat may be delayed at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands more mobilized soldiers, but it is generally inevitable. The combination of aggressive warfare, corruption, inept generals, weak economy, and heroism and high motivation of the defending forces can only result in defeat. The Kremlin's deceitful and hypocritical calls for negotiations and ceasefire are nothing more than a realistic assessment of the prospects of further military action.
What is to be done?
5. What are Ukraine's borders? They are similar to Russia's - they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991. Russia also recognized these borders back then, and it must recognize them today as well. There is nothing to discuss here. Almost all borders in the world are more or less accidental and cause someone's discontent. But in the twenty-first century, we cannot start wars just to redraw them. Otherwise, the world will sink into chaos.
6. Russia must leave Ukraine alone and allow it to develop the way its people want. Stop the aggression, end the war and withdraw all of its troops from Ukraine. Continuation of this war is just a tantrum caused by powerlessness, and putting an end to it would be a strong move.
7. Together with Ukraine, the U.S., the EU and the UK, we must look for acceptable ways to compensate for the damage done to Ukraine. One way to achieve this would be lifting the restrictions imposed on our oil and gas, but directing part of the income Russia receives from hydrocarbon exports towards reparations. Of course, this should only be done after the change of power in Russia and the end of the war.
8. War crimes committed during this war must be investigated in cooperation with international institutions.
How would stopping Putin's aggression benefit Russia?
9. Are all Russians inherently imperialistic?
This is nonsense. For example, Belarus is also involved in the war against Ukraine. Does this mean that the Belarusians also have an imperial mindset? No, they merely also have a dictator in power. There will always be people with imperial views in Russia, just like in any other country with historical preconditions for this, but they are far from being the majority. There is no reason to weep and wail about it. Such people should be defeated in elections, just as both right-wing and left-wing radicals get defeated in developed countries.
10. Does Russia need new territories?
Russia is a vast country with a shrinking population and dying out rural areas. Imperialism and the urge to seize territory is the most harmful and destructive path. Once again, the Russian government is destroying our future with its own hands just in order to make our country look bigger on the map. But Russia is big enough as it is. Our objective should be preserving our people and developing what we have in abundance.
11. For Russia, the legacy of this war will be a whole tangle of complex and, at first glance, almost unsolvable problems. It is important to establish for ourselves that we really want to solve them, and then begin to do so honestly and openly. The key to success lies in understanding that ending the war as soon as possible will not only be good for Russia and its people, but also very profitable. This is the only way to start progressing toward removal of sanctions, return of those who left, restoration of business confidence, and economic growth.
12. Let me re-emphasize that after the war, we will have to reimburse Ukraine for all the damage caused by Putin's aggression. However, the restoration of normal economic relations with the civilized world and the return of economic growth will allow us to do so without interfering with the development of our country. We have hit rock bottom, and in order to resurface, we need to bounce back from it. This would be both ethically correct, rational, and profitable.
13. We need to dismantle the Putin regime and its dictatorship, ideally, through conducting general free elections and convoking the Constitutional Assembly.
14. We need to establish a parliamentary republic based on the alternation of power through fair elections, independent courts, federalism, local self-governance, complete economic freedom and social justice.
15. Recognizing our history and traditions, we must be part of Europe and follow the European path of development. We have no other choice, nor do we need any.”
How Alexei Navalny differed from Vladimir Putin
“Everything is OK,” he wrote from prison to a friend in April that year. “We’ll make it (probably). I am fine and I have no regrets. And you shouldn’t either. Don’t despair. Everything will be fine. And even if it isn’t, we can console ourselves that we were honest people.”
It’s in his public statements one sees the man most clearly. Over time an overriding theme developed: “Be not afraid.” In 2022, at the end of his first year in prison, he wrote that “I want to say the same thing I shouted to those who gathered outside the courthouse when they took me to the police van: don’t be afraid. This is our country, and we only have one.” It was the government, he said repeatedly, who were instead ruled by fear: “The authorities fear those who aren’t afraid — or more precisely, those who might be afraid but who are able to overcome their fear.”
When his trumped up three-and-a-half year initial sentence was increased to nine years, and his appeal against it failed, Navalny was more explicit: “I am not afraid of this system. Certainly, I don’t want to sit in this cage instead of doing some useful things and watching my children grow up. But man is not given life to be afraid of the crazy old man in a bunker and this system he has built. That’s why I’m not afraid of you! And again, I urge everyone else not to be afraid.” When in August 2023, a further nineteen years was added to his jail-term, he was unsurprised. The sentence, he wrote on Instagram, had a single purpose: “To frighten. You, not me.”
The courage and sense of humor (another clear difference from Putin) he displayed throughout his incarceration seemed to have a single purpose too: not to frighten others. Much has been made of his joking with a long-familiar judge a day before his death, but less publicized are the games Navalny played in prison to pass the time. Denied letters from his family, he entered into a comic correspondence with the authorities, requesting a kangaroo, a kimono and a balalaika, and then sitting back and savouring the official replies. Suggesting an honor for a fellow-prisoner who had displayed lethal fighting abilities, he received a typical response: “Regarding your demand that a black belt in karate be awarded to your cellmate who killed a man with his bare hands, we report that the question of bestowing martial qualifications is not within the competency of this facility.”
“When you are in a punishment cell and don’t have much entertainment, you can always amuse yourself by corresponding with the prison administration,” Navalny wrote drily on Instagram. It seemed, said one journalist “to show that Navalny remains unbowed, almost above the fray, and that one can always do something, regardless of one’s circumstances.” Or that courage in the face of death, as Philip Larkin put it, means “not scaring others.”
One of Navalny’s last actions was to recommend that in this March’s national elections, citizens should flock to the voting-booths at exactly noon to demonstrate antipathy to the regime. “It doesn’t really matter what you do at the polling station,” said a message on the campaign website, “Vote for any candidate except Putin, spoil the ballot, or take it with you.” The “Noon against Putin” action, Navalny said, would be “completely legal and safe” and “could be a strong demonstration of national sentiment.” It remains to be seen how many will heed his advice.
But with those elections, their final outcome drearily assured, now imminent, and Orthodox Easter falling a few weeks later — the first Easter since the fall of communism Navalny will not be alive to see — it’s perhaps appropriate to finish with a tweet of his from the same season last year:
“Christ is risen. This day reminds us that we should not despair, and that no matter how hard it is now, the time will come when evil is defeated and people will once again say with a smile: ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”
https://thespectator.com/topic/how-alexei-navalny-differed-vladimir-putin/
.Commemorations will be held in Russia, of course - and in many other countries around the world, from Kazakhstan and Georgia, to the US, Canada, and countries in South America - the list is at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/e/2PACX-1vQZfBnQD_B0w2MLeNcgZwXDtw9s6ZRGL6n3R1V0K_6ayl0DeFg6Xn0Im_4OpP7OFE3VYc1mzmoQLBTv/pubhtml?pli=1
The Anti-Corruption Foundation is at
https://acf.international/ and it has Telegram pages at https://t.me/teamnavalny/
A recent Telegram post from his widow, Yulia Navalnaya at https://t.me/teamnavalny/25681:
“"The window of opportunity will be short and we will have to act quickly. The action plan must be ready now." Key points from Yulia Navalnaya's speech at the Munich Conference
Yulia Navalnaya spoke at the Munich conference, where her path in public politics began a year ago. Sirena (https://t.me/news_sirena) presents the main points from her speech:
🟥 "Putin killed my husband" - these are the words with which Navalnaya's speech began. She emphasized that over the past year her pain has not subsided, and the only way to cope with it is to fight and continue Alexei's work.
🟥 Navalnaya expressed disappointment that Western politicians continue to seek dialogue with Putin as if he were eternal, but do not offer a strategy for interaction with Russians who want change and a European future for Russia. Despite harsh repression, people do not give up and continue to believe in a better future for our country. There are many such Russians, and they have not disappeared.
🟥 It is impossible to negotiate with Putin. Any agreements with him will either be broken or will lose their meaning after his departure. The only way to change is to support democratic forces inside Russia and in exile.
🟥 "Putin will soon disappear, but Russia will never disappear anywhere." When that happens, a short window of opportunity for democratic change will open. By that time, we must have a clear plan of action.
"This plan should be addressed to those millions of Russians who are now in hiding, in internal emigration within the country, and to those who have gone into real emigration but dream of returning as soon as it becomes possible. To those who love Russia and believe in it, as my husband, Alexei Navalny, loved it and believed in it,"
— concluded Yulia Navalnaya, calling on the international community to support Russian democratic forces.”
A little more, then I’ll end this post:
“Let me tell you a cool story about prison psychology and character building.
The prison zone and convicts are governed by many factors, but three things are basic: 1) the threat to kill/beat/rape; 2) tobacco; and 3) food. The latter is applied as widely as possible. It is a simple and very effective method.
A convict - 90% of the time a young man - is always hungry. There are not enough rations, and often they are inedible. That is why almost no one stores their rations. There is a commissary, and vending machines which sell food - everyone gets something out of it somehow, and access to extra food is a great lever of the administration.
If you're in the SHU, everything is forbidden. There are no options here - go hungry. If you are in solitary confinement, you can buy food for 5 thousand rubles per month. Also, the law allows you to spend your salary, and to buy ready-made food in the canteen with no limit on the amount. But all this no longer applies to me, the law does not apply to me. They said: "5 thousand a month, and that's it.”
So what to do? You take a piece of paper and figure out how to spend the money. A thousand to put aside for soap, razors, and all sorts of hygiene supplies. The remaining 4000 divided by 31 days. You get 129 rubles per day for food. You can buy two boiled eggs and a few boiled potatoes at the canteen. On the weekends - boiled rice. Not enough for buckwheat. But even this is just a tremendous improvement in the quality of food. Give me a hard-boiled egg and I'll crumble it into my baloney, and I'll feel like I'm in a Michelin restaurant.
And then there's the delightful trick. The food was forced to be bought a month in advance. But what can you do if you're in the SHU for half a month and everything is forbidden there? There used to be a rule about that: if a convict couldn't get the food he had bought (for example, he had “gone on a long visit”), then he would write an application and they wouldn't cook it for him. And I also used to get money back for the SHIZO-days.
But then the FSIN got offended that we disclosed how they steal our vegetable purchases, and came up with an ingenious idea. Under the new rules, those in the SHU are still supposed to get food, but they don't get it, the prison staff just show it to them and then throw it away because it's expired.
It looks like this. The door opens. There's a cop with a bag: "Navalny, get the products you bought. Okay, hard-boiled eggs, sign here. We're throwing them out, they're about to expire. Look, you also have potatoes and rice. We'll dispose of them. They'll go bad tomorrow. Oh! Is that a bun? Did you buy it for the holiday? You're living the high life. Sign here for the receipt of the bun, and here for its destruction. Perishable product!"
I take my hat off to whoever came up with that. You didn't just spend all your money and get nothing, you also looked at the food you didn't get. First you get indignant and point at the law, then you appeal to their conscience, then you yell at the cops. And then your character hardens. And you understand the wisdom of prison concepts that condemn excessive interest in food (this is called intestinal fornication). And already you just say to the jailers with as indifferent a look as possible, "Come on, where do I sign for you to eat my potatoes?"
But you still want to eat.”
https://twitter.com/navalny
Original post:
https://twitter.com/navalny/status/1650807239874158595
Some more from Navalny:
”On the eve of the anniversary of the full-scale and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, I have summarized the political platform of mine and, hopefully, of many other decent people. 15 theses of a Russian citizen who desires the best for their country.
What was all this about and what are we dealing with now?
1. President Putin has unleashed an unjust war of aggression against Ukraine under ridiculous pretexts. He is desperately trying to make this a "people's war," seeking to turn all Russian citizens into his accomplices, but his attempts are failing. There are almost no volunteers for this war, so Putin's army has to rely on convicts and forcibly mobilized people.
2. The real reasons for this war are the political and economic problems within Russia, Putin's desire to hold on to power at any cost, and his obsession with his own historical legacy. He wants to go down in history as "the conqueror tsar" and "the collector of lands."
3. Tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians have been murdered, and pain and suffering has befallen millions more. War crimes have been committed. Ukrainian cities and infrastructure have been destroyed.
4. Russia is suffering a military defeat. It was the realization of this fact that changed the rhetoric of the authorities from claims that "Kyiv will fall in three days" to hysterical threats of using nuclear weapons should Russia lose. The lives of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were needlessly ruined. The ultimate military defeat may be delayed at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands more mobilized soldiers, but it is generally inevitable. The combination of aggressive warfare, corruption, inept generals, weak economy, and heroism and high motivation of the defending forces can only result in defeat. The Kremlin's deceitful and hypocritical calls for negotiations and ceasefire are nothing more than a realistic assessment of the prospects of further military action.
What is to be done?
5. What are Ukraine's borders? They are similar to Russia's - they’re internationally recognized and defined in 1991. Russia also recognized these borders back then, and it must recognize them today as well. There is nothing to discuss here. Almost all borders in the world are more or less accidental and cause someone's discontent. But in the twenty-first century, we cannot start wars just to redraw them. Otherwise, the world will sink into chaos.
6. Russia must leave Ukraine alone and allow it to develop the way its people want. Stop the aggression, end the war and withdraw all of its troops from Ukraine. Continuation of this war is just a tantrum caused by powerlessness, and putting an end to it would be a strong move.
7. Together with Ukraine, the U.S., the EU and the UK, we must look for acceptable ways to compensate for the damage done to Ukraine. One way to achieve this would be lifting the restrictions imposed on our oil and gas, but directing part of the income Russia receives from hydrocarbon exports towards reparations. Of course, this should only be done after the change of power in Russia and the end of the war.
8. War crimes committed during this war must be investigated in cooperation with international institutions.
Why would stopping Putin's aggression benefit Russia?
9. Are all Russians inherently imperialistic? This is nonsense. For example, Belarus is also involved in the war against Ukraine. Does this mean that the Belarusians also have an imperial mindset? No, they merely also have a dictator in power. There will always be people with imperial views in Russia, just like in any other country with historical preconditions for this, but they are far from being the majority. There is no reason to weep and wail about it. Such people should be defeated in elections, just as both right-wing and left-wing radicals get defeated in developed countries.
10. Does Russia need new territories? Russia is a vast country with a shrinking population and dying out rural areas. Imperialism and the urge to seize territory is the most harmful and destructive path. Once again, the Russian government is destroying our future with its own hands just in order to make our country look bigger on the map. But Russia is big enough as it is. Our objective should be preserving our people and developing what we have in abundance.
11. For Russia, the legacy of this war will be a whole tangle of complex and, at first glance, almost unsolvable problems. It is important to establish for ourselves that we really want to solve them, and then begin to do so honestly and openly. The key to success lies in understanding that ending the war as soon as possible will not only be good for Russia and its people, but also very profitable. This is the only way to start progressing toward removal of sanctions, return of those who left, restoration of business confidence, and economic growth.
12. Let me re-emphasize that after the war, we will have to reimburse Ukraine for all the damage caused by Putin's aggression. However, the restoration of normal economic relations with the civilized world and the return of economic growth will allow us to do so without interfering with the development of our country. We have hit rock bottom, and in order to resurface, we need to bounce back from it. This would be both ethically correct, rational, and profitable.
13. We need to dismantle the Putin regime and its dictatorship. Ideally, through conducting general free elections and convocating the Constitutional Assembly.
14. We need to establish a parliamentary republic based on the alternation of power through fair elections, independent courts, federalism, local self-governance, complete economic freedom and social justice.
15. Recognizing our history and traditions, we must be part of Europe and follow the European path of development. We have no other choice, nor do we need any.”