The Alexei I knew was very charming. I remember our first meeting at the White House in 2009 when I was working at the National Security Council. My boss at the time, Barack Obama, was known for his charisma. Mr. Navalny had a presence comparable to that of Obama. That day I understood why Putin was afraid of him. In a free and fair election, Navalny would have defeated Putin. Remember that the next time you read polls about Putin’s popularity in the media.
The Alexei I knew was incredibly funny. When I served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, we never had a formal meeting, but we only happened to meet once at a commemorative dinner for the Moscow Times. Mr. Navalny understood that a public meeting with me would only fuel the conspiracy theory constantly spread on Putin’s media channels, namely that the United States is funding his operations. Was. Instead, we always interacted on his Twitter in a humorous and playful way.
When I once called Russia a “barbaric country” after being accosted by Putin’s activists on the street, the entire world, including many in the United States, heard my “undiplomatic” rant. It felt like he was blaming me. Not Alexei. He asked on Twitter why I didn’t wear my belt since I have diplomatic immunity. In another tweet, ridiculing Putin’s conspiracy theories, Navalny told me that he was using the “last wagon” (a common Soviet-era vehicle for meeting people) at a subway station to carry out “secret” errands. I instructed them to meet by appropriate means).
The Alexei I knew, and the Alexei the world knew, was incredibly brave and steadfast in his values of fighting Putin’s corruption and trying to liberate his country from totalitarian dictatorship. . As a democratic chemist and occasional democracy activist, I have had the privilege of studying or meeting some of the world’s bravest freedom fighters. Mr. Navalny was one of them, as was Mr. Nelson Mandela of President Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mandela survived 30 years of captivity. Navalny tragically failed to do so.
The Alexei I knew was a very family-oriented person. He was very proud of his daughter Dasha when she entered Stanford University, where I teach. He and his wife Yulia were just like any other excited parents at Stanford University when they dropped Dasha off on campus during her freshman year. And they have watched her grow into a strong, principled, and charismatic leader just like her father and her mother. Of course, Alexei had to watch from afar.
In fact, long before he decided to return to Russia, his deepest fears were not about enduring torture or facing death in Putin’s concentration camps, but about being an absentee father and husband. It seemed to me. He knew that by doing what he thought was right for his country, he was also asking his family to make many sacrifices. And today, the sacrifice is much greater.
Navalny dreamed of a free Russia. Brutal dictators like Putin can kill people, but they cannot kill ideas. I don’t know when, but I am confident that Navalny’s ideas of freedom will outlive Putin’s ideas of tyranny.