Even after two years in prison, Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny wants to continue fighting for Russia’s liberation from the “clowns” who surround President Vladimir Putin. “I have no intention of giving them my country and I believe the darkness is fading,” he wrote in an Instagram post marking the second anniversary of his highly publicized arrest at a Moscow airport today. He called on his followers to persevere.
Navalny returned to Moscow two years ago after treatment in Germany for a poison attack – despite the danger to his life. Since then he has been in prison. “Russia is my country,” wrote Navalny. “I was born and raised here, my parents are here, I raised a family here,” emphasized the 46-year-old man, classified as a political prisoner by human rights activists. “I’m a full citizen and I have the right to associate with like-minded people – and to be involved in political activities.”
Symbolic resistance also “important”
There are more people like him in Russia “than venal judges, lying propagandists and thieves in the Kremlin.” Russia must be saved. “He was robbed, wounded, involved in an aggressive war and became a prison where the most unscrupulous and lying scoundrels rule,” wrote Navalny. “Any resistance – even if only symbolic – is important under my currently limited possibilities.”
Navalny had recently spoken about torture in the penal field. It took days and protests from doctors and well-wishers before the prison system would allow treatment for his illness. Navalny complained of cough, chills and fever in his solitary confinement in penal colony six in Melekhovo, near the town of Kovrov, about 260 kilometers northeast of Moscow.