Alexei Navalny died on February 16, 2024, and a few days later (Feb 21) I spoke briefly about him in a chapel service at Heritage Christian University. If you listen to that speech (see the video here), you’ll find that I really didn’t know much about Navalny at the time, just what had been widely reported. His memoir, Patriot, was published a few months later, and I eagerly read it. By the way, while in prison, Navalny mentioned that one of the reasons he was writing the memoir was for the royalties that would come to his family in case of his own death. “Let’s face it, if a murky assassination attempt using a chemical weapon, followed by a tragic demise in prison, can’t move a book, it is hard to imagine what would. The book’s author has been murdered by a villainous president; what more could the marketing department ask for?” (p. 406).

He nailed that. That’s why I read his book.

The essay below is a heavily edited version of that chapel speech from two years ago, with material added from my reading of his memoir.

On January 17, 2021, Alexei Navalny boarded a plane in Germany and returned to his home country of Russia. This seemingly simple action required great bravery and—according to some people, even people who knew and loved Navalny—great folly. For the last time Navalny had been in Russia, he had been poisoned and thought he was going to die. This poisoning—about which there is an entire Wikipedia article—happened on a Russian plane on August 20, 2020. A passenger on the flight used his phone to capture video of Navalny’s moaning. Here is a 60 Minutes story about Navalny that covers the poisoning and plays a brief clip of that passenger’s video.

He was in safety in Germany. He chose to go to Russia. He was immediately detained in the Russian airport and never left Russian state custody. He died in a Russian prison on February 16, 2024. He was 47 years old.

While in prison, in 2021, Navalny recalled that his publisher, who had already contracted his memoir, was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to finish the book if he returned to Russia. He remembers the publisher saying, “Of course, we admire your courage, but anything can happen in that country of yours, and then what would become of the book?” To this remembered statement Navalny replied, “I understand that you are saying ‘courage’ because you are polite, but you are thinking ‘stupidity’” (p. 405).

Navalny’s decision to return to Russia despite the risks is reminiscent of similar decisions. My daily Bible reading has Acts 21 fresh in my mind, where friends of the apostle Paul were urging him to avoid Jerusalem, assured by unimpeachable authority that his entrance into the city would bring him great suffering.

While we were staying there [= Caesarea] for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’” When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 21:10–13)

Paul’s response to his friends sounds remarkably like Navalny’s response to those urging him to stay in safety. And if we recall the courageous entrance into Jerusalem of the apostle of Jesus, we surely must also think of Jesus himself, who knew what awaited him in the city and that it must take place (see, e.g., Mark 8:31).

Closer to our time, Navalny’s decision echoes that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

In June 1939, Bonhoeffer was in New York City, having come there specifically to avoid the sufferings that the Nazi regime was visiting upon German society. After a weeklong layover in Britain, he boarded the Bremen for a five-day voyage to NY. He had been there before, a decade earlier, to study at Union Theological Seminary, and it was the friendships he had forged at that time that paved the way for this return visit. His friends, particularly his former teacher Reinhold Niebuhr, urged Bonhoeffer to flee to safety, and Bonhoeffer acquiesced.

Bonhoeffer arrived on June 2. His hosts were out of pocket, on summer holiday. In his journal he mentions that he went to the movies, saw Juarez, enjoyable and diverting. But the movie was no match for the anguish Bonhoeffer felt inside. “I would have liked to take the next ship. This inactivity, or rather activity spent on trivialities, is simply no longer bearable for us, thinking of the brothers and the precious time. The full force of self-reproaches about a wrong decision comes back up and is almost suffocating. I was filled with despair.” (This journal entry is dated June 15, 1939 and is printed in DBWE 15, #137, p. 222.) Bonhoeffer’s recent(-ish) biographer, Charles Marsh (who quotes this journal entry), comments: “The situation at home, it was now clear, had depleted his lifelong love of idle pleasures to a remarkable degree. Dietrich had become consumingly serious” (p. 280). He left New York on July 8, returning to Germany.

In Germany, Bonhoeffer became an agent for the Abwehr, but he was working against the Nazis. He had some involvement in the July 20 Plot, which led to his arrest in 1943 and eventually his execution on April 9, 1945, a few weeks before the end of the war.

Why did he return to Germany? As Bonhoeffer scholar Victoria Barnett writes in the introduction to DBWE 15 (p. 9), “Bonhoeffer came to New York because of his uncertainty about what would happen to him in Germany and his fears of military conscription. From the moment he arrived, however, he was haunted by the sense that he had abandoned his students and fled to safety while they confronted a precarious future.” In late June, he tried to explain himself by letter to Niebuhr, and the relevant passage is quoted at Wikipedia, but I quote below the entirety of the excerpt as printed in DBWE 15 (2005), #129, p. 210.

… Sitting here in Dr. Coffin’s garden I have had the time to think and to pray about my situation and that of my nation and to have God’s will for me clarified. I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people. My brothers in the Confessional Synod wanted me to go. They may have been right in urging me to do so; but I was wrong in going. Such a decision each man must make for himself. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security. …

(The original of this letter does not survive. This quotation was provided by Niebuhr himself in an article he wrote about Bonhoeffer’s death.) Bonhoeffer returned, though he knew that this decision would cost him dearly. And yet, what would be the point of his life if he avoided suffering? Some people might be fine with a life of easy pleasure; as Charles Marsh argues, Bonhoeffer himself was content with such a life earlier, but things had changed—German society and Bonhoeffer himself. He chose suffering.

Likewise Navalny.

Back to Navalny

Navalny died after three years in a Russian prison. Was it an assassination? Well, whatever you call it, it was certainly ordered by Russian president Vladimir Putin. How do I know? Uhhh. You can’t be seriously asking that question, can you? How about you watch that 60 Minutes piece above, and then reflect on Navalny’s last three years of life in a Russian prison, and Putin’s control of the situation in Russia, and if you’re still wondering whether Putin ordered Navalny’s death, I don’t know what to tell you. But I guess you could consider also this European report that came out a few weeks ago.

When the news of Navalny’s death broke a couple years ago, Tucker Carlson was also in the news because he had recently returned from Russia. Let’s talk about Tucker Carlson for a moment. As I recall he used to be a sane, level-headed, Republican pundit. It’s been a while since that description could be applied to Carlson. He became most famous and influential as a nightly Fox News commentator, having replaced Bill O’Reilly. Carlson himself was fired from Fox in 2023, at least in part for his role in promoting falsehoods regarding the 2020 Presidential election. For a while now, it seems that Carlson has endeavored to say the most outlandish, provocative nonsense; he seems uninterested in informing people—quite the opposite, he apparently revels in his ability to get people to believe the most patently ridiculous opinions.

That is how one should understand Carlson’s recent trip to Russia, which included an interview with the Russian president (which also has its own Wikipedia page) and a trip to the grocery store and the Moscow subway. Carlson effused about the beautiful Moscow subway. There’s a video that he posted online of his time in the grocery store, praising the low prices of Russian food, as if Russians are so much better off than Americans. Carlson seemed unaware that salaries in Russia are so low that the average Russian can barely those so-called cheap groceries. There are other silly things Carlson says in the video, especially about the grocery carts that use a coin-release mechanism that he had never seen before, though they are all over America (like at our local Aldi). In his interview with Putin, the name Navalny never came up. In Dubai on the Monday following, Carlson was asked why he hadn’t questioned Putin about Navalny, and Carlson said, “leadership requires killing people.” By Carlson’s standard, Putin is a great leader. A few days later, Putin killed Navalny.

To be fair to Carlson, he did follow up that last comment by saying, “that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader.” He seems to be saying that in the world in which we live, practically speaking (not ideally), leadership requires killing people. Carlson is, perhaps, regretful that this is the case. Still, he is too flippant in addressing the issue. Just because leaders often do terrible things does not mean that they don’t deserve condemnation for those terrible things—and the leaders who do more terrible things (more in quantity and quality) deserve more condemnation. It is disheartening—though, unfortunately, not surprising—to hear Carlson so callously toss aside Putin’s murders as irrelevant to an evaluation of the man.

What I want to point out in this context is the bravery of Navalny and the cowardice of Putin. Vladimir Putin is no leader—certainly not according to the standards of Jesus (remember Mark 10:41–45), and not even according to the much less noble standards of American history and society. Putin’s cowardice so defines him that he could not stand for Alexei Navalny to run against him in a presidential election. Putin was not concerned, I imagine, that he would actually lose the election, just that Navalny might get enough of the vote that Putin would somewhat lose face. He could not allow that to happen. But Putin’s cowardice, as cowardice tends to do, has only grown in recent years.

Let me point this out about cowardice, and all sin. It increases. Last night I was reading, once again, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my kids. And we were in chapter 4, titled “Turkish Delight.” Do you remember about this Turkish Delight? The White Witch created it for Edmund, pounds of it, and Edmund ate it all up, and then he was not satisfied, but only wanted more. Because it was enchanted Turkish Delight.

Edmund’s lust for that Turkish Delight determined his actions over the coming days, his own betrayals, his own sin, all for more of the false enjoyment that could never offer lasting pleasure.

Such is sin. Such is cowardice. And Putin’s cowardice has now grown to the extent that he could not even allow Navalny to live in the same country.

Notice the contrast between the two men. Putin has been indicted by the international court in the Hague, which means that if he travels to a nation that is a partner in the International Criminal Court, they are obligated to arrest him—so, he has not traveled to such a country. He’s reduced to traveling to places like China. On the other hand, Navalny knew full well that if he entered Russia again, he would likely be arrested and killed. And he went, in order to provide an example of bravery, and to give people hope.

At the time of Navalny’s death I did not know whether he was a Christian, but his memoir makes plain that he was. What I did recognize at the time, what was, indeed, blindingly obvious, was that Navalny’s actions—at least, the actions that I have been praising here—are entirely consistent with Christian principles.

It was at this point, in that chapel speech from two years ago, that I transitioned to talking about the book of Daniel, specifically chapter 6, the lion’s den story, which was ostensibly the topic for the day. I omit that brief portion of the speech here, and, if you want to learn my thoughts on this, I point you instead to my book on Daniel—except to say that Daniel’s response to the foolish decree of King Darius is another example of courage in the face of death, so well illustrated by Navalny in our own time.

Why Did Navalny Return to Russia in 2021?

This section is entirely dependent on my reading of Navalny’s memoir, which deals quite a bit with his motivations for returning to Russia after he recovered in Germany from his 2020 poisoning. (My comments here basically regurgitate a blog post from late 2024.) Many people advised him to stay away from Russia. Navalny recalls a visit to his hospital from Angela Merkel, who—when she heard about his plans to return to Russia—responded, “There’s no need to hurry” (p. 23).

The chapter in the memoir that to my mind is the best in the book, the most engrossing, is the out-of-chronological-order ch. 8, written from prison shortly after he was arrested in the Russian airport in January 2021. This chapter reveals that he and his team did not necessarily think he would get arrested straightaway; they gamed out several scenarios for how Putin might greet Navalny’s return to Russia (pp. 137–41). Before he left Germany, the bevy of questions from reporters about whether he intended to return to his home country annoyed him.

How do you like that, I thought irascibly…. You work for twenty years in the full glare of publicity, you write hundreds of articles, every day you back up your words with actions, and they still imagine I might be too scared to go back. (p. 131)

This response suggests that part of the reason for his return was—to put it cynically—to make a show of his bravery. I think a better and truer way of putting it: to provide an example for others, to provide hope. This interpretation is supported by an incident narrated later in the same chapter. Outside of a police station waiting to be transported to prison, he encountered some supporters.

They took me outside and people started yelling. Unexpectedly for me, I yelled back to them, “Don’t be afraid of anything!” That was an important moment, the kind when you feel at one with your supporters. They are thinking about you and want to show they are with you. You are thinking about them, and that the regime needs this arrest to frighten them, and you do your utmost to help them not to be afraid. You keep your back straight and shout, “Don’t be afraid of anything.” (p. 162)

In a sense, bravery is the point. When the regime lives on fear, courage is resistance.

A later chapter (ch. 15) prints Navalny’s speech at the Yves Rocher trial. Now, this Yves Rocher case—in which Navalny and his brother, Oleg, were accused of, I think, embezzling funds—dragged on for years. I think this particular speech was delivered in court probably in 2015 or thereabouts. He repeatedly mentions how the judges and the prosecutors stare down at the table, which he interprets as an attempt to ignore all the evidence of corruption in the system, to render the verdict that the Kremlin expects. Toward the end of the speech (p. 240), he divides Russian society into a few categories. The whole system is a junta, controlled by about twenty billionaires. There are about a thousand people, but no more, “who are feeding at this junta’s trough,” and these people are “state deputies and crooks.” “There’s a small percentage of people who don’t agree with this system. And then there are the millions who are simply staring at the table. I’ll never stop my fight with this junta. I’m going to continue fighting this junta, by campaigning and doing whatever it takes to shake up these people who are staring at the table. You included. I’m never going to stop.”

About halfway through the speech, he says:

Why do you put up with these lies? Why do you just stare at the table? I’m sorry if I’m dragging you into a philosophical discussion, but life’s too short to simply stare down at the table. I blinked and I’m almost forty years old. I’ll blink again and I’ll already have grandchildren. And then we all will blink again and we’ll be on our deathbeds, with our relatives all around us, and all they’ll be thinking about is, It’s about time they died and freed up this apartment. And at some point we’ll realize that nothing we did had any meaning at all, so why did we just stare at the table and say nothing? The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing, when we don’t have to look down at the table but can raise our heads and look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters. (p. 239)

This reminds me so of Bonhoeffer, whose flight to New York in 1939 was a flight away from doing something meaningful, a flight toward staring at the table. He quickly realized that just staring was not for him.

In the last chapter before the memoir becomes a prison diary (ch. 18), Navalny reflects on why he doesn’t protect himself more.

I have always tried to ignore the idea that I could be attacked, arrested, or even killed. I have no control over what might happen, and it would be self-destructive to dwell on it. Should I think, What are the chances that I’ll survive this morning? I don’t know; six out of ten? Eight out of ten? Maybe even ten out of ten? It’s not that I’m trying not think about it, closing my eyes and pretending the danger doesn’t exist. But one day I simply made the decision not to be afraid. I weighed everything up, understood where I stand—and let it go. I’m an opposition politician and understand perfectly who my enemies are, but if I were to worry constantly about them killing me, then it’s not worth my while living in Russia. I should emigrate or change what I do. (p. 271)

So, why doesn’t he emigrate or change what he does? Navalny doesn’t say so explicitly, but I believe the one action implies the other: emigrating entails changing what he does. What he did could only be done in Russia, because part of what got attention was the audacity of the bravery.

Another way of saying it is that exile is a good way to make yourself irrelevant. (Again, echoes of Bonhoeffer in NYC.)

While I don’t remember Navalny in this memoir framing his return in that way, various things he says touch on the same idea, as we’ve seen.

Living in safety while others (specifically, one’s fellow countrymen) suffered was not something that Navalny (or Bonhoeffer) was willing to do. (This theme of being implicated in the lives of others is one we have noticed before, with a nod to MLK.)

In an Instagram post from prison on Navalny’s 47th (and last) birthday (June 4, 2023), he wrote:

But life works in such a way that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay the price for their right to have their own beliefs. The more of them there are, the less everyone has to pay. …

But until that day comes, I see my situation not as a heavy burden or a yoke but as a job that needs to be done. Every job has its unpleasant aspects, right? So I’m going through the unpleasant part of my favorite job right now.

My plan for the previous year was not to become brutalized and bitter and lose my laid-back demeanor that would mean the beginning of my defeat. (p. 459)

He saw it as a personal defeat if the regime cowered him or embittered him—and in that way controlled him. No doubt Navalny faltered at times, but he provides a compelling example.

The final item in the book, before the epilogue (written by Navalny in March 2022), is an Instagram post from Jan 17, 2024. One month later, he would be dead. This final Instagram post once again addresses the question: “Why did you come back?”

I have my country and my convictions. I don’t want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.

And if you’re not prepared to do that, you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those are not convictions and principles; they’re only thoughts in your head.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone who’s not currently in prison lacks convictions. Everyone pays their price. For many people, the price is high even without being imprisoned.

I took part in elections and vied for leadership positions. The call for me is different. I traveled the length and breadth of the country, declaring everywhere from the stage, “I promise that I won’t let you down, I won’t deceive you, and I won’t abandon you.” By coming back to Russia, I fulfilled my promise to the voters. There need to be some people in Russia who don’t lie to them. (p. 470)

That is merely an excerpt from the Instagram post as printed in the memoir. The last line of that post, written a month before Navalny’s death:

But for now, we must not give up, and we must stand by our beliefs.

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