Alexei Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died Friday in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence, Russia’s prison agency said. He was 47.

The stunning news of Navalny’s death — less than a month before an election that will give Putin another six years in power — brought renewed criticism and outrage directed at the Kremlin leader who has cracked down on all opposition at home. People laid flowers at monuments to victims of Soviet-era political repressions in some Russian cities, but there was no immediate indication that Navalny’s death, which will deal a heavy blow to the beleaguered and fractured opposition, would spark large protests.

Joining us to discuss is Daniel Roher, director of the 2022 documentary Navalny and Regina Smyth, professor of political science at Indiana University and author of “Elections, Protest, and Authoritarian Regime Stability: Russia 2008–2020.”

With files from the Associated Press