World Affairs Brief, February 23, 2024 Commentary and Insights on a Troubled World.
Copyright Joel Skousen. Partial quotations with attribution permitted. Cite source as Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com).
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ALEXEI NAVALNY
Alexei Navalny was the most effective voice in Russia against the perpetual strong-man rule of Vladimir Putin. He didn’t have all the true free-market answers for Russia’s semi-controlled economy and facade of democracy, but he did recognize that Russia didn’t really have free elections. He was well spoken and openly challenged the corruption of Putin and his oligarchs, and was charismatic as well, with a rising popularity garnering tens of thousands at protest rallies. All of these things made him a formidable threat to Putin and his control over almost all the opposition parties, and that was precisely why Navalny was targeted for arrest and imprisonment where he died this week after being transferred to one of the worst gulag-style prisons in Siberia. Tucker Carlson again showed his ignorance (not treason) of the real Putin by defending him against charges that he had Navalny killed, and so I’ll take readers through the long list of persons Putin ordered killed since oligarch chief Boris Berezovsky brought Putin to Power in 2000. A few years later Berezovsky himself was exiled to London and later assassinated upon Putin’s orders but made to look like a suicide.