Activities

Yabloko

In 2000, following the announcement of a new law that would raise the electoral threshold for State Duma elections, Navalny joined the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko. According to Navalny, the law was stacked against Yabloko and Union of Right Forces, and he decided to join, even though he was not “a big fan” of either organization. In 2001, he was listed as a member of the party. In 2002, he was elected to the regional council of the Moscow branch of Yabloko. In 2003, he headed the Moscow subdivision of the election campaign of the party for the parliamentary election held in December. In April 2004, Navalny became Chief of staff of the Moscow branch of Yabloko, which he remained until February 2007. Also in 2004, he became Deputy Chief of the Moscow branch of the party. From 2006 to 2007, he was a member of the Federal Council of the party.

In August 2005, Navalny was incorporated into the Social Council of Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow, created prior to the Moscow City Duma election held later that year, in which he took part as a candidate. In November, he was one of the initiators of the Youth Public Chamber, intended to help younger politicians take part in legislative initiatives. At the same time, in 2005, Navalny started another youth social movement, named “DA! – Democratic Alternative”. The project was not connected to Yabloko, nor any other political party. Within the movement, Navalny participated in a number of projects. In particular, he was one of the organizers of the movement-run political debates, which soon resonated in the media. Navalny also organized television debates via state-run Moscow channel TV Center; two initial episodes showed high ratings, but the show was suddenly cancelled. According to Navalny, authorities prohibited some people from receiving TV coverage.

In late 2006, Navalny appealed to the Moscow City Hall, asking it to grant permission to conduct the nationalist 2006 Russian march. However, he added that Yabloko condemned “any ethnic or racial hatred and any xenophobia” and called on the police to oppose “any fascist, Nazi, xenophobic manifestations”.

In July 2007, Navalny resigned from the post of Deputy Chief of the Moscow branch of the party. He was consequently expelled from Yabloko for demanding a resignation of the chairman of the party, Grigory Yavlinsky. Also in 2007, Navalny co-founded the National Russian Liberation Movement, known as NAROD (The People), that sets immigration policy as a priority. The movement allied itself with two nationalist groups, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration and Great Russia.

 

2011 parliamentary election and protests

In December 2011, after parliamentary elections and accusations of electoral fraud, approximately 6,000 people gathered in Moscow to protest the contested result, and an estimated 300 people were arrested, including Navalny. Navalny was arrested on 5 December. After a period of uncertainty for his supporters, Navalny appeared in court and was sentenced to the maximum 15 days “for defying a government official”. Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow radio station, called the arrest “a political mistake: jailing Navalny transforms him from an online leader into an offline one”. After his arrest, his blog became available in English. Navalny was kept in the same prison as several other activists, including Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov, the unofficial leader of the Vanguard of Red Youth, a radical Russian communist youth group. Udaltsov went on a hunger strike to protest against the conditions.

 

Upon his release on 20 December 2011, Navalny called on Russians to unite against Putin, who Navalny said would try to claim victory in the presidential election, which was held on 4 March 2012. In a profile published the day after his release, BBC News described Navalny as “arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years”.

 

After his release, Navalny informed reporters that it would be senseless for him to run in the presidential elections because the Kremlin would not allow the elections to be fair, but if free elections were held, he would “be ready” to run. On 24 December, he helped lead a demonstration, estimated at 50,000 people, which was much larger than the previous post-election demonstration. Speaking to the crowd, he said, “I see enough people to take the Kremlin right now”.

 

In March 2012, after Putin was elected president, Navalny helped lead an anti-Putin rally in Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square, attended by between 14,000 and 20,000 people. After the rally, Navalny was detained by authorities for several hours, then released. On 8 May 2012, the day after Putin was inaugurated, Navalny and Udaltsov were arrested after an anti-Putin rally at Clean Ponds, and were each given 15-day jail sentences. Amnesty International designated the two men prisoners of conscience. On 11 June, Moscow prosecutors conducted a 12-hour search of Navalny’s home, office, and the apartment of one of his relatives. Soon afterwards, some of Navalny’s personal emails were posted online by a pro-government blogger.

 

New party

On 26 June 2012, it was announced that Navalny’s comrades would establish a new political party based on e-democracy; Navalny declared he did not plan to participate in this project at the moment. On 31 July, they filed a document to register an organizing committee of a future party named “The People’s Alliance”. The party identified itself as centrist; one of the then-current leaders of the party, and Navalny’s ally Vladimir Ashurkov, explained this was intended to help the party get a large share of voters. Navalny said the concept of political parties was “outdated”, and added his participation would make maintaining the party more difficult. However, he “blessed” the party and discussed its maintenance with its leaders. They, in turn, stated they wanted to eventually see Navalny as a member of the party. On 15 December 2012 Navalny expressed his support of the party, saying, “The People’s Alliance is my party”, but again refused to join it, citing the criminal cases against him.

On 10 April 2013, the party filed documents for the official registration of the party. On 30 April, the registration of the party was suspended. On 5 July 2013 the party was declined registration; according to Izvestia, not all founders of the party were present during the congress, even though the papers contained their signatures. Navalny reacted to that with a tweet saying, “[…] A salvo of all guns”. Following the mayoral election, on 15 September 2013, Navalny declared he would join and, possibly, head the party. On 17 November 2013 Navalny was elected as the leader of the party.

On 8 January 2014, Navalny’s party filed documents for registration for the second time. On 20 January, registration of the party was suspended; according to Russian laws, no two parties can share a name. On 8 February 2014, Navalny’s party changed its name to “Progress Party”. On 25 February 2014, the party was registered, and at this point, had six months to register regional branches in at least half of the federal subjects of Russia. On 26 September 2014, the party declared it had registered 43 regional branches. An unnamed source of Izvestia in the ministry said registrations completed after the six-month term would not be taken into consideration, adding, “Yes, trials are taking place in some regions they cannot register new branches in other regions during the trials, because the main term is over”. Navalny’s blog countered, “Our answer is simple. A six-month term for registration has been legally prolonged ad interim prosecution of appeals of denials and registration suspensions”.

 

Navalny’s election campaign in 2013

On 1 February 2015, the party held a convention, where Navalny stated the party was preparing for the 2016 elections, declaring the party would maintain its activity across Russia, saying, “We are unabashed to work in remote lands where the opposition does not work. We can even in Crimea”. The candidates the party would appoint were to be chosen via primary elections; however, he added, the party’s candidates may be removed from elections. On 17 April 2015, the party initiated a coalition of democratic parties. On 28 April 2015, the party was deprived of registration by the Ministry of Justice, which stated the party had not registered the required number of regional branches within six months after the official registration. Krainev claimed that the party could be eliminated only by the Supreme Court, and he added that not all trials of registration of regional branches were over, calling the verdict “illegal twice”. He added that the party would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, and expressed confidence that the party would be restored and admitted to elections. The next day, the party officially challenged the verdict.

 

2013 Moscow mayoral candidacy

On 30 May 2013, Sergey Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, argued an elected mayor is an advantage for the city compared to an appointed one, and on 4 June, he announced he would meet President Vladimir Putin and ask him for a snap election, mentioning the Muscovites would agree the governor elections should take place in the city of Moscow and the surrounding Moscow Oblast simultaneously. On 6 June, the request was granted, and the next day, the Moscow City Duma appointed the election on 8 September, the national voting day.

On 3 June, Navalny announced he would run for the post. To become an official candidate, he would need either seventy thousand signatures of Muscovites or to be pegged for the office by a registered party, and then to collect 110 signatures of municipal deputies from 110 different subdivisions (three-quarters of Moscow’s 146). Navalny chose to be pegged by a party, RPR–PARNAS.

Among the six candidates who were officially registered as such, only two (Sobyanin and Communist Ivan Melnikov) were able to collect the required number of the signatures themselves, and the other four were given a number of signatures by the Council of Municipal Formations, following a recommendation by Sobyanin,[105] to overcome the requirement (Navalny accepted 49 signatures, and other candidates accepted 70, 70, and 82).

On 17 July, Navalny was registered as one of the six candidates for the Moscow mayoral election. However, on 18 July, he was sentenced to a five-year prison term for the embezzlement and fraud charges that were declared in 2012. Several hours after his sentencing, he pulled out of the race and called for a boycott of the election. However, later that day, the prosecution office requested the accused should be freed on bail and released from travel restrictions, since the verdict had not yet taken legal effect, saying that the accused had previously followed the restrictions. Navalny was a mayoral candidate, and an imprisonment would thus not comply with his rule for equal access to the electorate. On his return to Moscow after being freed, pending an appeal, he vowed to stay in the race. The Washington Post has speculated that his release was ordered by the Kremlin in order to make the election and Sobyanin appear more legitimate.

Navalny’s campaign was successful in fundraising: out of 103.4 million rubles (approximately $3.09 million as of the election day), the total size of his electoral fund, 97.3 million ($2.91 million) were transferred by individuals throughout Russia; such an amount is unprecedented in Russia. It achieved a high profile through an unprecedentedly large campaign organization that involved around 20,000 volunteers who passed out leaflets and hung banners, in addition to conducting several campaign rallies a day around the city; they were the main driving force for the campaign. The New Yorker described the resulted campaign as “a miracle”, along with Navalny’s release on 19 July, the fundraising campaign, and the personality of Navalny himself. The campaign received very little television coverage and did not utilize billboards. Thanks to Navalny’s strong campaign (and Sobyanin’s weak one), his result grew over time, weakening Sobyanin’s, and in the end of the campaign, he declared the runoff election (to be conducted if none of the candidates receives at least 50% of votes) was “a hair’s breadth away”.

The largest sociological research organizations predicted that Sobyanin would win the election, scoring 58% to 64% of the vote; they expected Navalny to receive 15–20% of the vote, and the turnout was to be 45–52%. (Levada Center was the only one not to have made any predictions; the data it had on 28 August, however, falls in line with other organisations.) The final results of the voting showed Navalny received 27% of the vote, more than candidates appointed by the parties that received second, third, fourth, and fifth highest results during the 2011 parliamentary elections, altogether. Navalny fared better in the center and southwest of Moscow, which have higher income and education levels. However, Sobyanin received 51% of the vote, which meant he won the election. The turnout was 32%. The organisations explained the differences were because Sobyanin’s electorate did not vote, as they felt that their candidate was guaranteed to win. Navalny’s campaign office predicted Sobyanin would score 49–51%, and Navalny would get 24–26% of votes.

Many experts said the election had been fair, that the number of irregularities had been much lower than those of other elections held within the country, and that the irregularities had had little effect on the result. Dmitri Abyzalov, leading expert of Center of Political Conjuncture, added low turnout figures provide a further sign of fairness of the election, because that shows they were not overestimated. However, according to Andrei Buzin, co-chairman of the GOLOS Association, State Departments of Social Security added people who did not originally want to vote to lists of those who would vote at home, with the number of such voters being 5% of those who voted, and added this did cause questions if Sobyanin would score 50% if this did not take place. Dmitry Oreshkin, leader of the “People’s election commission” project (who did a separate counting based on the data from election observers; their result for Sobyanin was 50%), said now that the runoff election was only 2% away, all details would be looked at very closely, and added it was impossible to prove “anything” juridically.

On 9 September, the day following the election, Navalny publicly denounced the tally, saying, “We do not recognise the results. They are fake”. Sobyanin’s office rejected an offer of a vote recount. On 12 September, Navalny addressed the Moscow City Court to overturn the result of the poll; the court rejected the assertion. Navalny then challenged the decision in the Supreme Court of Russia, but the court ruled that the election results were legitimate.

 

RPR-PARNAS and democratic coalition

On 14 November 2014, the two remaining RPR-PARNAS co-chairmen, Boris Nemtsov and former Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Kasyanov, declared it was the right moment to create a wide coalition of political forces, who favor the “European choice”; Navalny’s Progress Party was seen as one of the potential participants. However, on 27 February 2015, Nemtsov was shot dead. Prior to his assassination, Nemtsov worked on a project of a coalition, in which Navalny and Khodorkovsky would become co-chairmen of RPR-PARNAS. Navalny declared merging parties would invoke bureaucratic difficulties and question the legitimacy of party’s right to participate in federal elections without signatures collecting. However, Nemtsov’s murder accelerated the work, and on 17 April, Navalny declared a wide discussion had taken place among Progress Party, RPR-PARNAS, and other closely aligned parties, which resulted in an agreement of formation of a new electoral bloc between the two leaders. Soon thereafter, it was signed by four other parties and supported by Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia foundation. Electoral blocs are not present within the current law system of Russia, so it would be realized via means of a single party, RPR-PARNAS, which is not only eligible for participation in statewide elections, but is also currently not required to collect citizens’ signatures for the right to participate in the State Duma elections scheduled for September 2016, due to the regional parliament mandate previously taken by Nemtsov. The candidates RPR-PARNAS would appoint were to be chosen via primary elections.

On 5 July 2015, Kasyanov was elected as the only leader of RPR-PARNAS, and the party was renamed to just PARNAS. He added he would like to eventually re-establish the institution of co-chairmanship, adding, “Neither Alexei Navalny nor Mikhail Khodorkovsky will enter our party today and be elected as co-chairmen. But in the future, I think, such time will come”. On 7 July, in an interview released by TV Rain, he specified Navalny could not leave a party of his, and this would need to be completed by PARNAS adsorbing members of the Progress Party and other parties of the coalition, and Navalny would be to come at some point when he “grows into this and feels this could be done” and join the party as well.

 

The coalition claimed to have collected enough citizens’ signatures for registration in the four regions it originally aimed for. However, in one region, the coalition would declare some signatures and personal data have been altered by malevolent collectors; signatures in the other regions have been rejected by regional election commissions. In Novosibirsk Oblast, some election office stuff went for a hunger strike, which was abandoned after in almost two weeks since its inception, when Khodorkovsky, Navalny, and Kasyanov publicly advised to do so. Сomplaints have been issued to the Central Election Commission of Russia, after which the coalition has been registered as a participant in a regional election in one of the three contested regions, Kostroma Oblast. According to a source of Gazeta.ru “close to the Kremlin”, the presidential administration saw coalition’s chances as very low, yet was wary, but the restoration in one region occurred so PARNAS could “score a consolation goal”. According to the official election results, the coalition scored 2% of votes, not enough to overcome the 5% threshold; the party admitted the election was lost.

 

2018 presidential election

Navalny announced his entry into the presidential race on 13 December 2016, however on 8 February 2017, the Leninsky district court of Kirov repeated its sentence of 2013 (which was previously annulled after the decision of ECHR, which ruled that Russia had violated Navalny’s right to a fair trial, in the Kirovles case) and charged him with a five-year suspended sentence. This sentence, if it came into force and remained valid, might prohibit the future official registration of Navalny as a candidate. Navalny announced that he would pursue the annulment of the sentence that clearly contradicts the decision of ECHR. Moreover, Navalny announced that his presidential campaign would proceed independently of court decisions. He referred to the Russian Constitution (Article 32), which deprives only two groups of citizens of the right to be elected: those recognized by the court as legally unfit and those kept in places of confinement by a court sentence. According to Freedom House and The Economist, Navalny was the most viable contender to Vladimir Putin in the 2018 election. Navalny organized a series of anti-corruption rallies in different cities across Russia in March. This appeal was responded to by the representatives of 95 Russian cities, and four cities abroad: London, Prague, Basel and Bonn.

Navalny was attacked by unknown assailants outside his office in the Anti-Corruption Foundation on 27 April 2017. They sprayed brilliant green dye, possibly mixed with other components, into his face in a Zelyonka attack that can damage eyes of the victim. He had been attacked before, earlier in the spring. In the second attack, the green-colored disinfectant had evidently been mixed with a caustic chemical, resulting in a chemical burn to his right eye. He reportedly lost 80 percent of the sight in his right eye. Navalny accused the Kremlin of orchestrating the attack.

Navalny was released from jail on 27 July 2017 after spending 25 days of imprisonment. Before that, he was arrested in Moscow for participating in protests and was sentenced to 30 days in jail for organizing illegal protests.

In September, Human Rights Watch accused Russian police of systematic interference with Navalny’s presidential campaign. “The pattern of harassment and intimidation against Navalny’s campaign is undeniable,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe, and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Russian authorities should let Navalny’s campaigners work without undue interference and properly investigate attacks against them by ultra-nationalists and pro-government groups.” On 21 September, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe invited Russian authorities, in connection with the Kirovles case, “to use urgently further avenues to erase the prohibition on Mr. Navalny’s standing for election”.

Navalny was sentenced to 20 days in jail on 2 October 2017 for calls to participate in protests without approval from state authorities.

In December 2017, Russia’s Central Electoral Commission barred Navalny from running for president in 2018, citing Navalny’s corruption conviction. The European Union said Navalny’s removal cast “serious doubt” on the election. Navalny called for a boycott of the 2018 presidential election, stating his removal meant that millions of Russians were being denied their vote. Navalny filed an appeal against the Russian Supreme Court’s ruling on 3 January, however a few days later on 6 January, the Supreme Court of Russia rejected his appeal. Navalny led protests on 28 January 2018 to urge a boycott of Russia’s 2018 presidential election. Navalny was arrested on the day of the protest and then released the same day, pending trial. OVD-Info reported that 257 people were arrested throughout the country. According to Russian news reports, police stated Navalny was likely to be charged with calling for unauthorized demonstrations. Two of Navalny’s associates were given brief jail terms for urging people to attend unsanctioned opposition rallies. Navalny stated on 5 February 2018 the government was accusing Navalny of assaulting an officer during the protests. Navalny was among 1600 people detained during 5 May protests prior to Putin’s inauguration; Navalny was charged with disobeying police. On 15 May, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Immediately after his release on 25 September 2018, he was arrested and convicted for organizing illegal demonstrations and sentenced to another 20 days in jail.

 

2019 Moscow City Duma elections

During the 2019 Moscow City Duma election Navalny supported independent candidates, most of whom were not allowed to participate in the elections, which led to mass street protests. In July 2019, Navalny was arrested, first for ten days, and then, almost immediately, for 30 days. On the evening of 28 July, he was hospitalized with severe damage to his eyes and skin. At the hospital, he was diagnosed with an “allergy,” although this diagnosis was disputed by Anastasia Vasilieva, an ophthalmologist who previously treated Navalny after a chemical attack by an alleged protester in 2017. Vasilieva questioned the diagnosis and suggested the possibility that Navalny’s condition was the result of “the damaging effects of undetermined chemicals”. On 29 July 2019, Navalny was discharged from hospital and taken back to prison, despite the objections of his personal physician who questioned the hospital’s motives. Supporters of Navalny and journalists near the hospital were attacked by the police and many were detained. In response, he initiated the Smart Voting project.

 

2020 constitutional referendum

Navalny campaigned against the vote on constitutional amendments that took place on 1 July, calling it a “coup” and a “violation of the constitution”. He also said that the changes would allow President Putin to become “president for life”. After the results were announced, he called them a “big lie” that did not reflect public opinion. The reforms include an amendment allowing Putin to serve another two terms in office (until 2036), after his fourth presidential term ends.

 

Anti-corruption investigations

In 2008, Navalny invested 300,000 rubles in stocks of 5 oil and gas companies: Rosneft, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, and Surgutneftegas, thus becoming an activist shareholder. As such, he began to aim at making the financial assets of these companies transparent. This is required by law, but there are allegations that high-level managers of these companies are involved in theft and resisting transparency. Other activities deal with wrongdoings by Russian police, such as Sergei Magnitsky’s case.

In November 2010, Navalny published confidential documents about Transneft’s auditing. According to Navalny’s blog, about 4 billion dollars were stolen by Transneft’s leaders during the construction of the Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. In December, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil [ru] project, which seeks to bring to light corrupt practices in the government procurement process. The project takes advantage of existing procurement regulation that requires all government requests for tender to be posted online. Information about winning bids must be posted online as well. The name RosPil is a pun on the slang term “raspil” (literally “sawing”), implying the embezzlement of state funds.

In May 2011, Navalny launched RosYama (literally “Russian Hole”), a project that allowed individuals to report potholes and track government responses to complaints. In August, Navalny published papers related to a scandalous real estate deal between the Hungarian and Russian governments. According to the papers, Hungary sold a former embassy building in Moscow for US$21 million to an offshore company of Viktor Vekselberg, who immediately resold it to the Russian government for US$116 million. Irregularities in the paper trail implied collusion. Three Hungarian officials responsible for the deal were detained in February 2011. It is unclear whether any official investigation was conducted on the Russian side.

In February 2012, Navalny concluded that Russian federal money going to Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechen Interior Ministry was being spent “in a totally shadowy and fraudulent way.” In May, Navalny accused Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov of corruption, stating that companies owned by Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov had transferred tens of millions of dollars to Shuvalov’s company, allowing Shuvalov to share in the profit from Usmanov’s purchase of the British steel company Corus. Navalny posted scans of documents to his blog showing the money transfers. Usmanov and Shuvalov stated the documents Navalny had posted were legitimate, but that the transaction had not violated Russian law. “I unswervingly followed the rules and principles of conflict of interest,” said Shuvalov. “For a lawyer, this is sacred”. In July, Navalny posted documents on his blog allegedly showing that Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, owned an undeclared business in the Czech Republic. The posting was described by the Financial Times as Navalny’s “answering shot” for having had his emails leaked during his arrest in the previous month.

In August 2018, Navalny alleged that Viktor Zolotov stole at least US$29 million from procurement contracts for the National Guard of Russia. Shortly after his allegations against Zolotov, Navalny was imprisoned for staging protests in January 2018. Subsequently, Viktor Zolotov published a video message on 11 September challenging Navalny to a duel and promising to make “good, juicy mincemeat” of him.

 

Medvedev

Main article: He Is Not Dimon to YouIn March 2017, Navalny published the investigation He Is Not Dimon to You, accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of corruption. The authorities either ignored the accusation or argued that it was made by a “convicted criminal” and not worth comment. On 26 March, Navalny organized a series of anti-corruption rallies in cities across Russia. In some cities, the rallies were sanctioned by authorities, but in others, including Moscow and Saint Petersburg, they were not allowed. The Moscow police said that 500 people had been detained, but according to the human-rights group OVD-Info, 1,030 people were detained in Moscow alone, including Navalny himself. On 27 March, he was fined 20,000 rubles minimum for organizing an illegal protest, and jailed for 15 days for resisting arrest.

 

Putin

On 19 January 2021, two days after he was detained by Russian authorities upon his return to Russia, an investigation by Navalny and the FBK was published accusing President Vladimir Putin of using fraudulently obtained funds to build a massive estate for himself near the town of Gelendzhik in Krasnodar Krai, in what he called “the world’s biggest bribe”. The estate was first reported on in 2010 after the businessman Sergei Kolesnikov, who was involved in the project, gave details about it. According to Navalny, the estate is 39 times the size of Monaco, with the Federal Security Service (FSB) owning 70 square kilometers of land around the palace, and the estate cost over 100 billion rubles ($1.35 billion) to construct. It also showed aerial footage of the estate via a drone, and a detailed floorplan of the palace that Navalny and the FBK said was given by a contractor, which was compared to photographs from inside the palace that were leaked onto the Internet in 2011. Using the floorplan, computer-generated visualizations of the palace interior were also shown.

There are impregnable fences, its own port, its own security, a church, its own permit system, a no-fly zone, and even its own border checkpoint. It is absolutely a separate state within Russia.

This investigation also detailed an elaborate corruption scheme allegedly involving Putin’s inner circle that allowed Putin to hide billions of dollars to build the estate. Navalny’s team also said that it managed to confirm reporting about Putin’s alleged lovers Svetlana Krivonogikh and Alina Kabaeva. Navalny’s video on YouTube garnered over 20 million views in less than a day, and over 92 million after a week. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a press conference called the investigation a “scam” and said that citizens should “think before transferring money to such crooks”.

Putin denied ownership of the palace and the oligarch Arkady Rotenberg claimed ownership.