Navalny’s ominous warnings for US investors 

The announcement of Alexei Navalny’s death on Friday in a remote Arctic prison camp came as a shock, notwithstanding the serious possibility and even predictability of such an eventuality in Vladimir Putin’s murderous regime. 

As has already been said so movingly by those who knew Navalny, especially his wife Yulia, he was a powerful force for democracy and human rights that struck fear in the heart of the Kremlin. 

As a man willing to sacrifice personal comfort and safety for the sake of his ideals, Navalny had a moral authority that stood in sharp contrast to the squalid self-enrichment of Putin and his entourage, and their unchecked use of brutal repression to stifle the slightest hint of political opposition. To the end, Navalny defied the regime with a courage worthy of the greatest figures in the history of the struggle for freedom, justice and human dignity.

I had the honor of hosting Alexei Navalny on two occasions when I was the president of the U.S.-Russia Business Council (USRBC). The first time was in Philadelphia in 2009 at a forum focused on the rule of law. At the time Navalny headed an organization dedicated to protecting shareholder rights in Russia’s murky securities regulatory system. He was still relatively unknown outside of Russia, but his eloquence and clarity of vision were evident to the U.S. business audience. 

The thrust of Navalny’s remarks was that minority shareholders in publicly traded state-owned enterprises should use their voting rights and general shareholders meetings to force transparency and accountability in those firms. The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom was squarely in his sights. 

It was evident to me that he was a man who would get under the skin of the Kremlin — and in the process make history.

The second time I hosted him was at the USRBC’s annual meeting in Chicago in 2011. The keynote Russian speaker was then-Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and I invited Navalny to allow our membership to hear a constructive dissenting opinion. By then, Navalny had rapidly risen to become the foremost leader of the “non-systemic” political opposition. 

Navalny’s remarks stressed the role that private enterprise and foreign investment could play in counteracting the crony capitalism that had taken over much of the commanding heights of Russian industry. Shuvalov’s unmemorable remarks were followed by a question-and-answer session at which Navalny posed tough questions about corruption and the government’s economic incompetence. It was a classic display of Navalny’s incisive interrogatory method and rhetorical skill.

Navalny’s vision for an economic transformation of Russia is embodied in the electoral platform of his presidential campaign of 2018. Among the actions that Navalny envisaged were measures that foreign investors, international financial institutions and economic analysts had been advocating for years. Those included demonopolizing the economy, privatizing state enterprises, lowering the tax burden on small and medium-sized enterprises, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy, opening up the banking sector to competition to lower borrowing costs, tax revenue sharing with sub-federal levels of government and increasing government spending on infrastructure, education and health care.

However, Navalny’s candidacy was officially annulled on the grounds of a bogus criminal conviction for financial malfeasance, depriving Russian voters of the opportunity to put Navalny’s ambitious program to the test.  

Combatting corruption was the key to Navalny’s emergence as a political figure and his videos highlighting the cupidity of Putin and his inner circle catapulted him to the world stage as Putin’s foremost political adversary. It was a message that resonated with many inside Russia and some foreign investors, such as Bill Browder, who had discovered how Russia’s financial regulators, criminal prosecutors and justice system worked hand in glove to protect crooked insiders the hard way. 

Navalny’s 2018 electoral platform also called for the establishment of an independent judiciary that he said would “protect private property from illegal takeovers and the high-handedness of state organs.”

Finally, one plank in the platform bears a particular relevance to another topic dominating the headlines today: the Russo-Ukrainian War.

“We will make peace with the civilized world, stop aggression towards Ukraine and thus achieve the removal of sanctions, which prevent our entrepreneurs from trading with the outside world and getting […] loans on global financial markets.”

Throughout his time in prison, Navalny continued to call for the cessation of Putin’s war against its neighbor, undoubtedly further incurring the wrath of the Kremlin.

Despite Putin’s efforts to discredit him, Navalny’s greatest legacy will be the bright light that he shined into the dark corners of the Putin regime.

Edward S. Verona is a former U.S. diplomat, business executive and former president and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Business Council (2008-2013). He is currently in Kyiv, Ukraine.