A Stunned Russian Opposition in Exile Considers a Future Without Navalny

The loss of life of Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s fundamental opposition chief, has surprised Russian dissidents. However additionally it is spurring some hope that in its determined second, the opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin will be capable of unite like by no means earlier than.

Doing so will probably be a problem, given the customarily aloof strategy of Mr. Navalny’s motion and the disparate meeting of different main opposition Russian figures: almost all of them in exile, and none together with his broad nationwide attraction.

Amongst them is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former oligarch who fell out with Mr. Putin, spent 10 years in jail and in London turned one in every of his most distinguished opponents in exile. Then there may be Maxim Katz, a YouTube influencer and a former poker champion, who is predicated in Israel. There’s additionally Ilya Yashin, a longtime liberal politician who’s serving an eight-year sentence for publicizing Russian atrocities in Ukraine.

Past these figures who’re making an attempt to talk for the entire of Russia is a plethora of small antiwar teams targeted on specific Russian areas, social points or ethnic minorities. A few of their calls for — like a reckoning with Russia’s imperial historical past — have clashed with the extra conservative place of Mr. Navalny, who had flirted with Russian nationalism with the intention to acquire a broader following.

Many function their very own YouTube channels, or use different social media like Telegram and podcasts, to beam their messages to tens of millions of viewers in Russia regardless of the Kremlin’s tightening its management of data.

However looming over all of them will probably be Mr. Navalny, even after his loss of life in a Russian jail on Friday. As of Sunday, Mr. Navalny’s household has nonetheless not been in a position to find his physique, in response to his staff.

Throughout his decades-long political profession, Mr. Navalny constructed an unmatched community of nationwide activist cells, social media channels and worldwide allies that made him the face of the opposition to Mr. Putin. A staff of expert lieutenants transplanted this community into exile in Vilnius, Lithuania, after Mr. Navalny’s imprisonment in 2021.

“All of us within the opposition are at a sure loss about what we ought to be doing now and the way,” mentioned Mr. Katz, 39. “The complete opposition life has at all times revolved round Navalny, so now it’s fully unclear what’s going to occur.”

A few of Mr. Navalny’s lieutenants, who’re largely of their 30s, have grow to be political gamers in their very own proper, with an opportunity to form the long run course of the late chief’s motion. There’s Leonid Volkov, a skillful political organizer who had overseen Mr. Navalny’s community overseas and Kira Yarmysh, Mr. Navalny’s longtime press officer.

The loss of life of Mr. Navalny has additionally drawn consideration to his spouse, Yulia Navalnaya, 47. Her forceful speech to Western leaders in Munich after the information of her husband’s loss of life on Friday raised hypothesis that she may additionally have a political future.

Mr. Navalny’s staff acknowledged on Saturday that their sprawling group would wish to restructure to adapt to their chief’s loss. However they gave little indication of what political route they may take, past vowing to hold on Mr. Navalny’s mission.

“We would wish to bear some adjustments,” Ms. Yarmysh, the spokeswoman, instructed an unbiased Russian information program on YouTube. “We’re all completely conscious of this.”

Ms. Yarmysh mentioned that she didn’t have a right away remark for this text. Two different senior aides to Mr. Navalny declined to remark.

Mr. Navalny and, later, his staff have lengthy justified their resolution to go it alone, saying that the effort and time spent managing political alliances could be higher spent straight confronting Mr. Putin.

“I will probably be direct: Go to hell together with your coalitions,” Mr. Navalny wrote in response to Mr. Katz’s call for an electoral alliance on his website last year. “That is imitation of exercise. A faux.”

Mr. Katz typically sparred with Mr. Navalny’s staff on social media. Different dissidents mentioned such squabbles diluted the impression of the opposition and stored it divided.

Now, with Mr. Navalny’s loss of life, his allies, in addition to the broader Russian dissident motion, are in search of a brand new technique with which to oppose Mr. Putin.

From Vilnius, Mr. Navalny’s group runs on-line information channels, investigative shops and teams of activists that proceed to set the agenda for the broader opposition motion.

Their fundamental instrument has been YouTube, the final main Western social media platform allowed contained in the nation, and the first supply of data for tens of millions of Russians.

Mr. Navalny’s fundamental YouTube channel, maintained by his employees, has greater than six million subscribers. The group’s information channel, Well-liked Politics, which was arrange after the invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022 to counter authorities propaganda, has greater than two million. Final 12 months, Well-liked Politics increased its broadcasts to about 30 hours a week and almost doubled its employees to 130.

Normally, broadcasts by Mr. Navalny’s staff attempt to straddle a line between political campaigning and information, a format utilized by dozens of opposition politicians, civil society leaders and unbiased media teams which can be making an attempt to stay a part of the dialog in Russia from exile.

A YouTube channel run by Mr. Katz has attracted almost 10 million distinctive guests previously three months, in response to YouTube Analytics information. Practically 60 p.c of them got here from inside Russia.

For his half, Mr. Khodorkovsky’s a lot diminished wealth nonetheless permits him to sponsor a community of on-line information shops focusing on totally different sectors of the Russian public.

Mr. Katz mentioned the success of a social media marketing campaign launched from overseas to assist a long-shot antiwar candidate, Boris B. Nadezhdin, accumulate the required signatures to run within the presidential election in March confirmed that it stays potential to create a political impression in Russia from exile. (The federal government-controlled electoral physique later challenged a few of these signatures, almost definitely ending Mr. Nadezhdin’s run.)

A report last year by JX Fund, a analysis group targeted on freedom of speech, estimated that Russian unbiased media reached 6 p.c to 9 p.c of Russia’s grownup inhabitants, a large quantity given the ubiquity of state propaganda and repression within the nation.

Some figures within the wider Russian opposition motion expressed cautious hope for a extra inclusive political alliance in opposition to Mr. Putin that will keep on Mr. Navalny’s legacy.

“I’ve at all times referred to as for a coalition as a result of, amongst different causes, I knew simply how susceptible particular person opposition leaders are,” Mr. Khodorkovsky mentioned. “A coalition is rather more steady as a system, as a result of if one individual is gone, others are left, and but different new ones seem.”

His view was shared by Maxim Reznik, a former regional lawmaker from St. Petersburg, Russia, who continues to work on native politics from exile in Vilnius.

“I’ve at all times thought that their isolationist place is just not the proper one,” Mr. Reznik mentioned about Mr. Navalny’s group. “Aleksei can’t be changed, however we’d like some mechanism of collaboration.”

The opposition’s preliminary response to Mr. Navalny’s loss of life has pointed within the route of larger unity, at the least for now. A unifying trigger has centered round a voting initiative endorsed by Mr. Navalny on social media on Feb. 1, in one in every of his final public statements.

The initiative, initially proposed by Mr. Reznik, calls on Russian voters to go to polling stations at midday on March 17, a vote that Mr. Putin is all however sure to win.

Mr. Reznik mentioned the initiative, primarily a political flash mob, was the most secure option to categorical discontent in a rustic the place any protest dangers a jail time period.

“We wish to present that the Emperor has no garments,” Mr. Reznik mentioned.

After Mr. Navalny’s loss of life, virtually all distinguished opposition figures had declared their assist for the noon vote.

“This dragon, this beast, has destroyed everybody — it has killed our Lancelot, our hero. The query is now solely about us,” mentioned Mr. Reznik, referring to the Russian authorities. “Both we come out and present the world that Russians will not be slaves of the regime, or we don’t.”

“And I actually concern the second state of affairs,” he added.

Ivan Nechepurenko, Neil MacFarquhar and Anton Troianovski contributed reporting. Oleg Matsnev contributed analysis.