WHY DID THE KREMLIN ORDER THE DEATH OF ALEXEI NAVALNY?

Alexei Navalny has now joined the long list of Putin critics who have paid a high price for dissent.

- JOHN DOBSON

"Do you think Vladimir Putin is a killer", the interviewer asked President Joe Biden in March 2022.

"Mhmm, I do", came a reply which led to an explosion of anger from the Kremlin.

Although many eyebrows were raised in the West at the direct answer from the US president, many world leaders believed that Biden was spot on. Russia's president is a killer and few doubt that last week he authorised the murder of his arch-enemy, Alexi Navalny.

Moments after news of Navalny's death was whispered in his ear, a delighted Putin was seen smiling as he addressed workers at a forge and press plant on the outskirts of Moscow. Putin maintained his hallmark trait of not deigning to refer to his adversary despite ample opportunity to do so, but his face said it all. In the past decade, Navalny and Putin have been locked in a brutal battle royal that was unlikely to end without the death of one of them.

And now it has finally happened.

Navalny has been a thorn in the side of the Kremlin for years. He was the defining symbol of what already seems like a distant period of Russian history, when there was still some optimism that democracy may gain a hold in the country.

From the time Putin came to power in 2000 there was a pseudo-form of democracy, but even that was shattered when the protests that followed a clearly rigged election rattled the Putin regime. Navalny won 27 percent of the vote in Moscow's mayoral election in 2013, despite fierce state interference, signalling that even in Russia's managed authoritarian form of democracy there was still room for electoral surprises. Throughout the decade, Navalny mobilised Russia's opposition on numerous occasions, particularly targeting corruption, an issue that resonated with many Russians.