Navalny reported dead
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison, according to Russian officials
Hello from the Bear Market Brief.
This week in the news:
Yamal-Nenets prison officials reported that opposition leader Alexei Navalny died today while incarcerated at the IK-3 penal colony.
The Russian government announced new plans to expand the freight capacity of Far Eastern railway lines to 270 million tons per year by 2035.
The competition is open for Novosibirsk’s next mayor, who will be appointed by the local assembly instead of being elected by the city’s residents.
Ukraine claims to have hit a Russian landing ship, the Caesar Kunikov, on the anniversary of its namesake’s death.
— Sara Ashbaugh, Editor-in-Chief
Alexei Navalny reported dead
Opposition politician and influential Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was reported dead by prison authorities earlier today. “The inmate A. A. Navalny started to feel unwell after a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness at correctional facility No. 3 on Feb. 16,” the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district prison service said, “Medical staff arrived immediately, an ambulance was called. None of the resuscitation efforts yielded positive results.” Navalny had been last seen just a day before at a court hearing via video link. His death has not yet been independently verified; his family and staff are waiting for his lawyer, Leonid Solovyov, to confirm by visiting the IK-3 prison colony where he was being held. Navalny was 47 years old.
Navalny’s cause of death has not been released, although there are rumors that he died due to a blood clot. His health had been deteriorating during his time in prison, and harsh conditions may have contributed to his untimely death. He was regularly subjected to long periods of solitary confinement, and he was recently transferred to an Arctic penal colony known for its severe conditions. Additionally, he was not receiving adequate medical care for health complications that resulted from an assassination attempt using Novichok nerve agent in 2020. Whether Navalny was killed negligently through harsh prison conditions or deliberately murdered, there is no doubt that the Russian government is to blame. “The regime wanted him dead. That's why it happened, that's why it was allowed to happen,” an anonymous former senior Kremlin official told The Moscow Times. U.S. President Joe Biden held a press conference about Navalny’s death in which he called him a “powerful voice for the truth” and said, “Make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. What happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Putin has been informed about Navalny’s death, but the Russian President has not commented publicly.
Navalny was an influential activist and prominent opposition leader even from behind bars. Russians are mourning his loss with protests and memorials in over 50 cities across the country. Hundreds gathered in Moscow and St. Petersburg to pay their respects despite freezing weather and the threat of arrest. Indeed, rights group OVD-Info reports that more than 100 people have already been detained while honoring Navalny.
— Sara Ashbaugh
Alexei Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, gave a statement at the Munich security conference after her husband’s death was announced. “If it is true, I would like Putin and all his staff, everybody around him, his government, his friends, I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done to our country, to my family, and to my husband. They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon,” she said during her moving speech, which received a standing ovation. (photo: Marc Mueller / MSC handout / EPA)
Ambitious railway expansion plans
The government plans to expand the freight capacity of Far Eastern railway lines to 270 million tons per year by 2035 (from the current 173 million), according to Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov. This would go beyond current investment plans laid out until 2032. The third and final stage of current modernization plans is set to be launched next year; the government recently approved a contract worth around 500 billion rubles ($5.4 billion) with the BTS-Most company to construct three key tunnels and a bridge over the Amur River. Whether the plans will be completed on time, however, is questionable, given that earlier stages of modernization and expansion progressed slower than expected.
Recently, Putin personally reminded the government that expanding the capacity of Far Eastern lines to 180 million tons per year was a task he set in his 2018 presidential decrees. According to the government and Russian Railways (RZhD), which develops the network, this has to happen before the end of this year. The usual role of such reminders from Putin is for him to signal to citizens that while actual implementation might lag due to the inaction of lower-level officials, the President is on top of the issue. His remarks, however, also came shortly after his pre-election tour of Far Eastern regions and on the back of press reports that RZhD and the exporters that use Far Eastern railway lines—who will also have to pay for the upgrades in the form of higher tariffs—are having trouble agreeing on construction priorities. This suggests that the President wants a swift resolution of these issues.
In general, railway transit in the eastern direction continues to face problems due to heightened competition between commodities (primarily coal) exporters and exporters of other goods with higher added value, which Russian Railways officially prioritizes. This has led to traffic jams and idling trains at major transit hubs.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
Change of the guard in Novosibirsk
The Novosibirsk City Council announced a competition for the next mayor of Russia’s third largest city, who will be elected by the local assembly instead of the city’s residents. Direct mayoral elections were scrapped in Novosibirsk in 2023, just months after the same happened in Tomsk, another relatively pluralistic city in Siberia. The decision upset a power-sharing agreement between then-mayor Anatoly Lokot, a Communist politician, and the region’s governor, Andrey Travnikov. Lokot officially resigned at the end of last year.
The city’s next mayor will likely be elected sometime in April following the selection of candidates in March. While the city’s political and business elite will try to influence the selection, the process set up last year gives Travnikov’s office oversized influence. The outcome will indicate how firm the Kremlin’s grip is on the city, which has seen several recent protests over utility prices, service disruptions, and the issue of mayoral elections. A similar process in Tomsk last year ended with the Governor bringing in an outside mayor, but only after several months of back-and-forth with the local assembly.
One of the candidates who announced her intention to run (but is unlikely to succeed) is independent deputy Svetlana Kaverzina. She led the local campaign office of the recently-disqualified presidential candidate Boris Nadezhdin, was formerly associated with the semi-systemic liberal Yabloko party, and has led a neighborhood organization since 2018. In the 2020 municipal elections, she was one of the candidates supported by the Novosibirsk 2020 organization for City Council. The organization then cooperated with Alexei Navalny’s campaign and managed to elect several deputies running on anti-corruption platforms, including some who were opposed to the corrosive influence of construction lobby groups. She is the last of these independent deputies still untouched by the authorities’ campaigns against her colleagues, which saw three of them labeled “foreign agents” and two stripped of their mandates. Similarly to them, she has supported bringing back direct mayoral elections, as well as other grassroots initiatives, e.g. against utility price hikes.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
Russian photographer Dmitry Markov died this week at 42 years old, according to local news outlet The Pskov Province. Many of Markov’s photographs focused on everyday life in the Russian regions, but his most famous shot, pictured here, was taken in Moscow during the February 2021 sentencing of Alexei Navalny. The photo, which shows a masked riot policeman sitting under a portrait of Vladimir Putin, became a symbol of protest against the government’s persecution of Navalny. Markov’s cause of death was not reported. (photo: Dmitry Markov)
Ukraine hit a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea
On Wednesday, the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine reported that it struck the Russian landing ship Caesar Kunikov stationed near the Crimean city of Alupka. The operation was carried out jointly by the Ukrainian military and military intelligence using Magura V5 naval drones. Defense Intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov did not specify how many drones were deployed, but he told reporters that the operation took “a long time to prepare.” The Caesar Kunikov vessel was named after a Soviet hero and was symbolically struck on the anniversary of Kunikov’s death. This is the second time in two weeks that Ukrainian forces hit a Russian vessel on the Black Sea. On February 2, Ukraine used naval drones to sink the Russian missile-armed corvette Ivanovets.
The Caesar Kunikov fits 87 crew members, but what happened to them after the strike remains unknown.
According to Ukraine’s military intelligence, Russian search and rescue efforts have thus far been unsuccessful. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the attack. “I suggest you refer to the statements of our military colleagues,” Peskov told journalists on Wednesday. The Russian Defense Ministry did not provide any commentary either—it only reported downing six Ukrainian drones on the Black Sea overnight. However, the Rybar Telegram channel, close to the Russian Defense Ministry, did report on the attack. Another Russian Telegram channel, Two Majors (Dva Mayora), wrote that the crew survived.
— Lisa Noskova
On the Podcast
Almost two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, Bear Market Brief investigates how we got here in the first place. What does theory say about Vladimir Putin’s decision making? Seva Gunitsky joins to discuss.
Quickfire: Regions
Vladimir Putin announced the creation of a special economic zone around Shebekino, a border town in the Belgorod Region, which has suffered shelling and incursions several times since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The purpose of the zone is to foster economic activity in the depopulating border zone, but it is unclear how this is supposed to help while a growing part of the region continues to face threats due to the war. On February 15, Belgorod itself suffered a missile attack for the second time in recent months. The region’s Governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has been lobbying for more direct aid from the federal budget. The region’s income dropped by 15% in 2023 and the cost of reconstruction drove up expenses. Transfers did grow over the past year, but the fiscal space to increase transfers this year is more limited.
The Prosecutor General's Office is seeking to nationalize three factories belonging to the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant (ChEMK) that are currently owned by the Etalon company. The plants are located in the Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Kemerovo regions and are major employers in the field of ferroalloy production. As in previous instances of Russia’s ongoing nationalization, prosecutors argue that the privatization of the plants in the 1990’s was illegal. They also argue that the nationalization of the plant is a matter of national security, since, according to the prosecutors’ claims, the products of the company are exported to “unfriendly states.” The suit also mentions that ChEMK’s trader is a Canadian-Swiss company. Nationalization of the factories could be part of a plan to create a bigger state-owned or state-controlled holding in the industry. Given the size of the company, however, its seizure may also create tensions between the Kremlin and the local business elite. Yury Antipov, the current owner of ChEMK, is an influential member of the Chelyabinsk business elite.
As a sign of growing dependence on Chinese export markets and infrastructure projects to support Russia’s pivot to the east, two of Russia’s Far Eastern regions made unusually warm gestures towards their bigger neighbor over the past week. Vasily Orlov, head of the Amur Region (where Sinopec is building a major gas chemical plant with the Russian petrochemical giant Sibur), wished China a happy Lunar New Year in a Mandarin-language video message on Telegram. (In a somewhat more surprising move, the mayor of Nevinommyssk in the Stavropol Territory in southwestern Russia also posted in Mandarin.) In Chita, the seat of the Transbaikal Territory, Mayor Yevgeny Yarilov proposed naming streets in new housing developments after Chinese cities. The charm offensive has so far not succeeded in convincing China’s government and investors to green-light the Far East’s most important project, the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, or to increase their participation in other infrastructure projects inside Russia. However, they do highlight the increasing importance of Chinese partners in the economies of Russia’s Far Eastern regions.
— Andras Toth-Czifra
Quickfire: Ukraine
Polish farmers announced that, on February 20, they will start a complete blockade of all border crossings and railway shipment stations between Ukraine and Poland. They say they are doing so because of the inability of the Polish and EU authorities to solve the import issue. According to the protesters, the blockade will last 30 days. The announcement comes amid a new wave of protests at the Medyka-Shehyni, Hrebenne-Rava-Ruska, and Dorohusk-Yahodyn border crossings. On Sunday, footage appeared online showing Polish protesters dumping grain from Ukrainian trucks on the road near the Dorohusk crossing. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, called for a resolution by Polish authorities. “Such methods by protesters should not be tolerated in a European civilized country, let alone the moral aspect of this provocation. Therefore, we demand to find and hold those responsible accountable. The Polish authorities should decisively respond within the legal framework to this shameful and insulting crime against Ukrainians and the majority of Poles and not allow such barbaric actions in the future,” the diplomat wrote on Facebook. Chairman of Ukraine’s Parliament Committee on Finance, Danylo Hetmantsev, commented that Ukraine could lose over $200 million if the blockade is not lifted by the end of the month.
On Friday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported that Russian losses have crossed the 400,000 mark. In addition to personnel, Russia has also lost 6,465 tanks, 12,129 armored vehicles, 12,716 vehicles and fuel tanks, 9,641 artillery systems, 984 multiple launch rocket systems, 671 air defense systems, 332 planes, 325 helicopters, 7,408 drones, and 25 boats.
— Lisa Noskova