In retrospect, these moves appear to be part of Putin's years-long preparations for an invasion of Ukraine. By being tough on political opposition, he ensured that there were few people willing to come out and protest his murderous war, which he began on February 24, 2022.
Nearly two years into the war in Ukraine, Russian civil society has been devastated; Almost all prominent anti-Putin political figures and hundreds of thousands of anti-war Russians have fled abroad. The rare critics who remained, such as Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, have joined Navalny behind bars.
Alexei Navalny shoots into a crowd of people during a political protest in Moscow in 2019.credit: AP
The Kremlin should not fear protests in a country where a 72-year-old retired woman was jailed last month for five years, simply because of an anti-war post on social media. Putin can torture, imprison and kill the country's most popular opposition politician safe in the knowledge that he is untouchable within Russia's borders.
Outside of them, the West is not afraid. It took several months of war in Ukraine before sanctions were imposed on the Russian energy sector and oil exports in particular.
But the Russian economy is nowhere near the breaking point; The Kremlin can still sell oil and gas on global markets, if not in Europe, and key elements of the Russian export market such as the diamond trade have not been affected at all.
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Meanwhile, Navalny's death comes at a time when the West is tired of having to fund the Ukrainian military. For his part, Putin indicates that he does not mind freezing the front line where he stands and describes this as a victory.
If Putin is not blamed for Navalny's death, one can expect American and European politicians to follow in Tucker Carlson's footsteps and visit him for talks in Moscow, sooner or later.
Whether Navalny died in an assassination or as a result of the conditions of torture to which he was subjected for three years, his death should put an end to any such initiatives – at least for now.
