Alexei Navalny

His father, Anatoly Ivanovich Navalny (b. 28th of January, 1947, in Zalissia village, Ukraine) is of Ukrainian heritage, his mother, Lyudmila Ivanovna Navalnaya (b. 4th of April, 1954, near Zelenograd, Russia) is of Russian descent.

He identified as half Russian and half Ukrainian.

His father was from Zalissia, a village near the Ukraine-Belarusian border that was relocated due to nuclear contamination after the Chernobyl disaster in Ivankiv Raion, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine.

Young Navalny grew up in Obninsk, about 100 km southwest of Moscow, but spent his childhood summers with his grandmother in Ukraine, acquiring proficiency in the Ukrainian language.

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny (Алексей Анатольевич Навальный; 4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024) was a Russian opposition leader,

Through his social media channels, Navalny and his team published material about corruption in Russia, organised political demonstrations and promoted his campaigns.

Navalny graduated from Kalininets secondary school (level 3 according to the ISCED) in 1993.

His parents privately own a basket-weaving factory, which they have run since 1994, in the village of Kobyakovo, Vologda Oblast.

He graduated from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in 1998 with a law degree.

From 1998, Navalny worked as a lawyer for various Russian companies.

In 2000, following the announcement of a new law that raised the electoral threshold for State Duma elections, Navalny joined the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko.

According to Navalny, the law was stacked against Yabloko and Union of Right Forces, and he decided to join, even though he was not "a big fan" of either organisation.

He then studied securities and exchanges at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, graduating in 2001.

In 2001, he was listed as a member of the party.

In 2002, he was elected to the regional council of the Moscow branch of Yabloko.

In 2009, Navalny became an advocate and a member of advocate's chamber (bar association) of Kirov Oblast (registration number 43/547).

In 2010, upon recommendation from Garry Kasparov, Yevgeniya Albats and Sergey Guriev Navalny received a scholarship to the Yale World Fellows program at Yale University and there he studied political science and world affairs.

As a World Fellow at Yale University's World Fellows Program, Navalny aimed at "creating a global network of emerging leaders and to broaden international understanding" in 2010.

In 2010, due to his move to Moscow, he ceased to be a member of advocate's chamber of Kirov Oblast and became a member of advocate's chamber of Moscow (registration number 77/9991).

In a 2011 radio interview, he described Russia's ruling party, United Russia, as a "party of crooks and thieves", which became a popular byname.

Navalny and the FBK have published investigations detailing alleged corruption by high-ranking Russian officials and their associates.

As of 2012, they were still running the factory.

Navalny twice received a suspended sentence for embezzlement, in 2013 and 2014.

Both criminal cases were widely considered politically motivated and intended to bar him from running in future elections.

He ran in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election and came in second with 27% of the vote but was barred from running in the 2018 presidential election.

In November 2013, after the judgement in the Kirovles case had entered into force, Navalny was deprived of advocate status.

In August 2020, Navalny was hospitalised in serious condition after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.

He was medically evacuated to Berlin and discharged a month later.

Navalny accused Putin of being responsible for his poisoning, and an investigation implicated agents from the Federal Security Service.

In January 2021, Navalny returned to Russia and was immediately detained on accusations of violating parole conditions while he was hospitalised in Germany.

Following his arrest, mass protests were held across Russia.

In February 2021, his suspended sentence was replaced with a prison sentence of over 2 1⁄2 years' detention, and his organisations were later designated as extremist and liquidated.

In March 2022, Navalny was sentenced to an additional nine years in prison after being found guilty of embezzlement and contempt of court in a new trial described as a sham by Amnesty International; his appeal was rejected and in June, he was transferred to a high-security prison.

In August 2023, Navalny was sentenced to an additional 19 years in prison on extremism charges.

In December 2023, Navalny went missing from prison for almost three weeks.

He re-emerged in an Arctic Circle corrective colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

On 16 February 2024, the Russian prison service reported that Navalny had died at the age of 47.

His death sparked protests, both in Russia and in various other countries.

Accusations against the Russian authorities in connection with his death have been made by many Western governments and international organisations.

Navalny was born into a family of mixed ethnicity.