For Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, being poisoned by the assassins of President Vladimir Putin was merely a practice run, not a warning. However, his political staff claims that because of his resistance, the Russian despot is now in a race against time with him.

The jury is still out on whether Navalny can outlast Putin and his war in Ukraine, according to his main investigator Maria Pevchikh. She told CNN, “Touch wood, so far, they haven’t gone through with trying to kill him again.”

Navalny bravely boarded an aircraft on January 17, 2021, returning directly to the control of the Kremlin after surviving a near-fatal injection of the deadly nerve poison Novichok administered by Putin’s thugs five months earlier.

By that point, Navalny had turned against Putin. The Russian president has such a strong dislike for his rival that he still won’t use his name.

Navalny knew precisely what he was getting into when he got off the plane from Berlin onto the chilly tarmac at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport that wintry evening. I understand that Putin dislikes me, and I believe that individuals in the Kremlin are prepared to kill, he told CNN only weeks before departing Germany.

Navalny had paid a price along the way to enlightenment. He was acutely aware of how close he had been to passing away at the hands of Putin’s assassins while participating in a political campaign in Siberia to support local candidates.

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On September 29, 2019, Alexey Navalny joins a rally in Moscow, Russia, in support of political prisoners.
On September 29, 2019, Alexey Navalny joins a rally in Moscow, Russia, in support of political prisoners.
Anadolu Agency/Getty Images/Sefa Karacan
Following some inventive sleuthing by investigative company Bellingcat and CNN, Navalny and his top research team identified his would-be killers and learned they had been following him on Putin’s orders for more than three years as he recovered in Berlin from the August 2020 assassination attempt.

Navalny had such thorough knowledge about the assassins that, while posing as a representative of Russia’s National Security Council, he was able to call one of the would-be killers, who immediately admitted to injecting Navalny with the illegal nerve toxin Novichok.

The security agency agent, who was part of a sizable team from the notorious FSB, the contemporary equivalent of the Soviet KGB, even provided criticism of their aborted murder attempt. He explained to Navalny that the only reason he had been able to live was because the jet carrying him had to divert when he fell ill and quipped that the assassination attempt might have been successful with a longer journey.

When CNN’s Clarissa Ward, along with reporters from Der Spiegel and The Insider who had also assisted in the investigation, confronted the agent in person at the door of his Moscow apartment, the agent quickly locked himself inside. Russia has categorically denied any role in Navalny’s assassination attempt.

On February 29, 2020, Alexey Navalny, his wife Yulia, opposition leader Lyubov Sobol, and other protesters march in downtown Moscow in remembrance of slain Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov.
On February 29, 2020, Alexey Navalny, his wife Yulia, opposition leader Lyubov Sobol, and other protesters march in downtown Moscow in remembrance of slain Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov.
Images by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty
Putin smirked and responded, “If there was such a desire, it would have been done,” when asked if he had attempted to have Navalny killed.

Despite his denials, Putin’s motivation was clear: Navalny’s charisma made him the largest political threat to the Russian president.

He is currently the most well-known opponent of Putin in Russian politics and is risking his life to free Russians from Putin’s grip.

In self-imposed exile for their own safety, Navalny’s team feels that their leader is competing with Putin for survival.

Pevchikh, who oversees Navalny’s investigative team and assisted in flushing out his would-be killers, predicts that Putin will be removed from power as a result of the war in Ukraine, which Navalny has denounced from his prison cell. She claims that the issue is whether Navalny can endure Putin. It’s kind of like a race. Who is still standing at this point?

The IK-6 penal colony, to which Alexey Navalny was sent close to the settlement of Melekhovo, is visible in a snapshot taken on June 23, 2022, in the Vladimir area.
The IK-6 penal colony, to which Alexey Navalny was sent close to the settlement of Melekhovo, is visible in a snapshot taken on June 23, 2022, in the Vladimir area.
Photographs by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty
It is hardly surprising that Navalny was almost immediately imprisoned following his arrival from Germany and that he is currently being held in one of Russia’s most dangerous prisons (he was transferred to a maximum-security prison facility in Melekhovo, in the Vladimir area, in June).

What is astonishing is that Navalny continues to speak out despite all of the psychological and physical abuse he has endured at the hands of Putin’s harsh jail system.

His Twitter and Instagram accounts continue to criticize Putin even though he is in prison. Pevchikh explains, “He passes hundreds of notes, and we write them up.” She made no mention of how the notes were distributed.

But there is a price to pay: Navalny has had to struggle for even the most fundamental rights, like boots and medication, as a result of Putin’s labyrinthine legal maneuvers and every fictitious turn. He lost weight, and his health has suffered.

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Dasha Navalnaya, his daughter, who is a current Stanford University student in California, told CNN that her father is routinely picked out for severe treatment.

She claims that the prison staff frequently cycles him in and out of solitary confinement. She claimed that in an effort to break him, “they put him in for a week, then pull him out for one day.” People are not permitted to contact him, and the solitude he is experiencing is solely psychological anguish.

She claimed that his physical treatment is equally appalling. It’s a little cell, around six by eight feet. Fareed Zakaria of CNN asked her about the man’s six-foot-three height. He merely has a single, floor-attached iron stool. He is permitted to own the following items as personal property: a mug, a toothbrush, and one book.

Navalny’s attorney has claimed recently that he has a “temperature, fever, and cough.” His team is having trouble getting meds to him in his isolation cell because he hasn’t seen a doctor yet.

On February 15, 2022, Yulia Navalnaya departs the IK-2 male penitentiary institution during a court proceeding in the Russian town of Pokrov in the Vladimir Region.
On February 15, 2022, Yulia Navalnaya departs the IK-2 male penitentiary institution during a court proceeding in the Russian town of Pokrov in the Vladimir Region.
Reuters/Denis Kaminev
His wife Yulia has expressed worry about his health and claims to have received a letter from Navalny on Wednesday. She claims he has been ill for more than a week, is not receiving treatment, and is dragged away from his bed during the day.

According to the Facebook page where the letter was published, at least 531 Russian doctors as of Wednesday had signed an open letter to Putin demanding that Navalny receive the appropriate medical care.

Since May of last year, he hasn’t seen his family, and his daughter worries about what might happen next. She declared, “This is one of Russia’s most notorious high security prisons infamous for torturing and killing the detainees.

On his return to Russia nearly two years ago, Navalny kissed his wife Yulia as he was being arrested by authorities at Sheremetyevo airport.

Crowds that had gathered outside to greet them home were repelled by riot police. It marked the start of a new phase of Navalny’s battle, one that he is aware he might not survive.

judicial circus
In a statement he had taped before leaving Germany, he stated: “My message for the situation when I am killed is really simple: not give up… Only inaction on the part of good people will allow evil to triumph. Don’t sit around then.

Message from Navalny to the Russians origseriesfilms 5 00000802.png
VIDEO
Take a moment to hear Navalny’s heartfelt appeal to Russians.
After being detained at the airport, Navalny appeared in court in Moscow, where the enormity of his issues had just begun to emerge. He was rebellious; imprisoned in a cage in the crowded court, he expressed his love to his wife in the cramped room just yards away.

The actual trial was a farce. He received a two-and-a-half-year prison term for allegedly violating his probationary conditions in a long-running, politically motivated prosecution.

The readily manipulated legal system in Russia was given a typically Putinesque twist in the courtroom play. As Navalny recovered from the Novichok poisoning he and Western officials attribute to the Kremlin, he was allegedly violating his probation and was lying unconscious in a Berlin hospital.

If Putin’s Russia’s legal system was an absurd circus, Navalny was to spend his time in jail, where Putin wanted to shatter his will.