In an exclusive interview, Alexei Navalny’s longtime Jewish chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, opens a window to the man Vladimir Putin is most afraid of, and talks about his own teshuvah process by Navalny’s side
It was no triumphal home coming. The founder of the “Russia of the Future” party, which has been repeatedly blocked from even registering as a political entity, was still gaunt as a result of his encounter with Novichok, the nerve agent that’s seemingly the weapon of choice for Russia’s official hit men. After his plane was diverted to an airport where a courtroom had been assembled, Navalny was sentenced to jail in a trial that he called “lawless.”
Two weeks after the event, as Western leaders urgently call for his release and thousands take to the streets inside Russia, the questions have only grown.
Cut off from the world in a maximum-security jail, the 44-year-old is at the mercy of a prison system where troublemakers have mysteriously met their end. What is his short-term survival strategy?
Even if his international stature protects him, how can Alexei Navalny’s cause prevail against the powerful security apparatus and governing elite who have closed ranks around leader Vladimir Putin?
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