“If they decide to kill me then it means we are incredibly strong and we need to use that power and not give up. We don’t realise how strong we actually are.”
The words of Alexei Navalny in an old interview with CNN have been recirculated online following his death.
Here, we take a look at some of the Russian opposition leader’s other key quotes.
On the Ukraine war
“This is a stupid war which your Putin started,” Mr Navalny
told an appeal court in Moscow in 2022.
“This war was built on lies. One madman has got his claws into Ukraine and I do not know what he wants to do with it – this crazy thief.”
On Putin
“Corruption is the foundation of contemporary Russia, it is the foundation of Mr Putin’s political power,” he told Reuters in 2011.
On fear and ambition
“Why should I be afraid?” he said in 2011 when asked about the dangers of challenging the Kremlin.
When questioned about his ambition, he winced but said: “I would like to be president, but there are no elections in Russia.”
On Russia
“Once the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy described the structure of power in Russia: ‘The villains who robbed their own people got together, recruited soldiers and judges to guard their orgy, and now they’re having a feast’.
“This brilliant phrase precisely describes what is happening in our country.”
He said of Russian reformers in the 1990s and the oligarchs that followed: “I can’t stop myself from fiercely, wildly hating those who sold, pissed away, and squandered the historical chance that our country had in the early nineties.”
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