Every Saturday, we revisit a story that’s in the news again. On Friday, Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny died in an Arctic prison while serving 19 years behind bars. Today, we look back at his history.

This originally aired on March 26, 2021. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed. 

Alexey Navalny is a man with many titles: Russian dissident, opposition leader, activist, investigator, lawyer. Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly refuses to say his name. But this larger-than-life persona leaves out a crucial part of Navalny’s past — his history of nationalism.

In this episode: 

• Mansur Mirovalev (@mirovalev), Journalist
• Natalia Antonova (@NataliaAntonova), Journalist

Episode credits:

This episode was updated by Sarí el-Khalili. The original production team was Priyanka Tilve, Negin Owliaei, Alexandra Locke, Ney Alvarez, Dina Kesbeh, Amy Walters, Natalia Aldana, Stacey Samuel, and our host Malika Bilal. 

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio. 

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