You’re loading in a lot of Kremlin-friendly conclusions that go well beyond the parts of the criticism that are actually fair.

Yes, some of the criticism is fair. Navalny did have a nasty nationalist/xenophobic streak, some of his older rhetoric was ugly, and his Crimea position deserved criticism. But that still does not make him “just a Western puppet,” and it does not change the basic fact that he was the most visible anti-Putin opposition figure in Russia. Not the only opposition, not universally loved, not some flawless democrat dropped from heaven. But anti-Putin in a real, consequential sense, and willing to pay for it with prison and ultimately his life.

You also seem to be slipping from “he had bad politics in important ways” into “therefore anything the Russian state said about him must be basically true.” That is where this starts reading less like principled criticism and more like reflexive pro-Russia filtering. The Kremlin spent years trying to turn every opponent into either a crook, a foreign puppet, or a fascist depending on what was most useful. Repeating that whole frame is not the same as being critical.

And no, I do not think Navalny was going to magically save Russia overnight. No one person was. But politics does not work like that anyway. Sometimes a deeply imperfect opposition figure is still a beginning, a breach in the wall, a stepping stone toward something better. In a system as closed and repressive as Putin’s, even that matters.

So yes: criticize his nationalism, criticize his rhetoric, criticize his blind spots on empire and Ukraine. All fair. But pretending he was just some irrelevant Moscow nobody inflated by the West is its own kind of mythmaking.

He seems to have believed that if he stayed abroad, he’d lose political and moral legitimacy. Returning meant accepting the danger… I guess he rolled a bad roll on his d20 and was all out of inspiration.

Are you referring to his earlier nationalist and anti-immigration politics? That criticism is real, and I’m not pretending otherwise. But reducing him to ‘racist ultranationalist POS’ also erases that he became the most significant anti-corruption and anti-Putin opposition figure in Russia. If you want to criticize him, be specific about what part of his record you mean.

Fuck. I’ve watched Dead Poets’ Society for the first time maybe a month ago without having had the ending spoiled. Oof. The look on Robin Williams face in the end scene. That torment in his eyes may just have been real and not just acting.

Aw shit, I forgot.

Idk, mate. I think he was fighting for the right cause. Care to elaborate or just want to troll?

Alexei Navalny’s death really made me sad. Thought the guy would make it and usher a new era.

Maragert Thatcher in a Dacia coming at cha! Tadej Pogačar racing Cleopatra.

Voldemort with a nose.

Fellow sublime enjoyer! Used it for typesetting LaTeX since 2014

Probably called Xunil

This but unironically. My wife’s profile picture is from around when we met, didn’t have kids yet, and she’s doing a silly face.

Pretty sure vice versa my Pic is the donkey from Shrek…