Navalny, Putin, and Us

On Fox News, Laura Ingraham asked Donald Trump about the fine levied against his businesses after a civil trial. He responded, “It’s a form of Navalny. It’s happening in our country too.” The moral grossness of this response is typical of the man. And he has yet to criticize the Putin dictatorship for its persecution of Navalny or to praise the late opposition leader for his courage.

Is Trump fit for leadership in America? Millions think so. The Republican Party is about to nominate him for president for a third time. And he is the hero of what still calls itself the “conservative movement.”

• Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, is an honest politician, to a degree. Campaigning as a surrogate for Trump in South Carolina, she was asked whether Putin was responsible for the death of Navalny. At first she said, “I don’t know.” Then she said, “I really could care less.”

Again, honest. Believable.

• The Republican Party is, in a sense, a family business. Trump’s daughter-in-law is bidding to become the co-chairman of the Republican National Committee. The way I see it, she clearly knows not to criticize Putin.

• I think it’s right that the American president meet Navalny’s family.

• From the Moscow Times:

The mother of late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Thursday that Russian investigators had finally allowed her to see her son’s body but are now pressuring her to hold a funeral for him in secret.

“Looking into my eyes, they told me they’ll do something to my son’s body if I don’t agree to a secret funeral,” Lyudmila Navalnaya said in a video published on the activist’s YouTube channel. . . .

“Investigators told me point blank: ‘Time isn’t on your side, the corpse is decomposing,’” she continued.

(For the article in full, go here.)

Putin’s dictatorship is almost comically evil. But there is no comedy for its victims, of course. And this dictatorship has ample support in the Free World — even as its Soviet predecessor did.

I remember something that Vladimir Bukovsky said. I went to see the late Soviet-era dissident, at his home in Cambridge, England, several months before he died. I will quote from a subsequent article:

Putin is a classic Soviet man, said Bukovsky: “a product of the system.” Putin did not spend all those years in the KGB for nothing. “Everything that comes from him has a birthmark on it,” said Bukovsky: a Soviet birthmark.

• Why do Russian authorities fear a public funeral for Navalny? Alex Kokcharov provides a reminder:

• Julia Davis, of the Russian Media Monitor, has written an article headed “Russia Issues Chilling Warnings to Navalny’s Widow.” It begins,

Following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s lead, state TV hosts referred to the opposition leader as “that man,” “that citizen,” or “the Berlin patient” . . .

Once his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, said on February 19 that she was “going to continue the work” of her late husband, she entered their crosshairs as well.

Yes. Vladimir Solovyov, a major Kremlin mouthpiece, said, “The same fate awaits Navalnaya!” (The same fate as her husband.) “If she comes to Russia, she will go to prison.” Oh, yes, no doubt — and worse.

Solovyov gave all the reasons that Alexei Navalny deserved murder. But hang on: Wasn’t it the West who killed him? Solovyov, in classic Soviet fashion, had it both ways. Navalny deserved murder, as an enemy of the Russian state — but also, the West killed him.

“The West is the only beneficiary of his death!” said Solovyov. “Here, he wasn’t interesting to anyone, unwanted and forgotten — totally gone. They had to revive interest, shake things up, and disrupt the fantastic effect from the interview of our country’s leader with Tucker Carlson.”

You see?

• It wasn’t enough to kill Navalny. The Kremlin will hound the victim’s family every way possible. Here is a headline from RFE/RL (our combination of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty): “Russia Adds Navalny’s Self-Exiled Brother To Its ‘Wanted List’ Again.” (Article here.)

• One last item, for now — from the BBC Russia-watcher Francis Scarr:

Just like old times. Like all times?