A year after Navalny’s death, the Russian opposition struggles without its charismatic leader

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One supporter called the death of Alexei Navalny one year ago the “point of no return” for Russia. “After Alexei passed away, I’m afraid that there is no one left who could somehow resist the Kremlin”, Oleg Ivanov told The Associated Press.

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Ambassadors from the U.S. and the UK laid flowers at Navalny’s grave in Moscow cemetery early Sunday together with Russians who came to mourn the late opposition leader. Memorial services and protests are expected around the world on Sunday.

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In this image made from a video provided by Moscow City Court, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny makes a heart symbol while standing in the defendants’ cage during a hearing into his 2014 criminal conviction in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 2, 2021. (Moscow City Court via AP, File)

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This image made from video released by Russian Federal Penitentiary Service via SOTAVISION shows opposition leader Alexei Navalny appearing in court via video link from the Arctic Circle penal colony where he was serving a 19-year sentence in Kharp, Russia, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, on Feb. 15, 2024. It was the last time he was seen alive by anyone outside the penal colony. (Russian Federal Penitentiary Service via SOTAVISION via AP)

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A stretcher is taken from an aircraft carrying Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in a coma after a nerve agent poisoning, at Tegel Airport in Berlin, Aug. 22, 2020. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, center left, and his mother-in-law, Alla Abrosimova, visit his grave at the Borisovskoye Cemetery, in Moscow, Russia, on March 2, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

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Police, right, watch people walking toward the Borisovskoye Cemetery for the funeral of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow, Russia, March 1, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

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Workers carry the coffin and a portrait of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny from the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God Soothe My Sorrows in Moscow, Russia, March 1, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

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This image made from an Associated Press video shows a view of the prison colony where Alexei Navalny spent the last weeks of his life in the town of Kharp, Russia, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 20, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

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People pay their respects to the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny at a monument to victims of Russia’s Gulag prison camp system with the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, the successor agency of the Soviet KGB in the background, in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

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A supporter of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wears a mask of President Vladimir Putin in a replica of the Kremlin foe’s jail cell in a square near the Louvre Museum in Paris on March 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla, File)

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Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen inside a defendants’ cage in court in Moscow, Russia, Feb. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, his wife Yulia, right, daughter, Daria, and son, Zakhar, pose for the media after voting in a city council election in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 8, 2019. (AP Photo, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny appears on a TV screen during a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 28, 2021. (AP Photo, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is surrounded by journalists inside a plane carrying him back to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering from a nerve agent poisoning, on Jan. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, takes a selfie with his brother, Oleg Navalny, who had served a prison sentence widely seen as retribution for Alexei’s activism, during a march in memory of political activist Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 24, 2019. Years prior, Oleg Navalny (AP Photo, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, attends a rally in Moscow, Russia, on Jan. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, attends a meeting of Russia’s Central Election Commission as he aspires to run for president against Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 25, 2017. (AP Photo/Evgeny Feldman, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, and his wife, Yulia, left, attend a meeting where his supporters nominated him as a candidate for president in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, and members of his team pose for a picture at the office of the Foundation for Fighting Corruption in Moscow, Russia, on May 18, 2017. (AP Photo, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, center, appears in court in Moscow, Russia, March 30, 2017. (AP Photo, File)

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Police officers detain Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, left, in Moscow, on July 10, 2013. (AP Photo, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, right, embraces his wife, Yulia, as he is released in a courtroom in Kirov, Russia, on July 19, 2013. (AP Photo, File)

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From left, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, and opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Alexei Navalny attend a rally to protest alleged vote rigging in Russia’s parliamentary elections in Moscow, Russia, on Dec. 24, 2011. (AP Photo, File)

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Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen in his office in Moscow, Russia, April 1, 2010. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

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FILE – Opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen behind bars in a police van after being detained during protests in Moscow, on May 8, 2012, a day after President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev, File)

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A woman arranges copies of “Patriot,” the memoir of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on its first day on sale in a bookshop in Berlin, Germany, on Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

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Yulia Navalnaya, center, and Russian opposition politicians Vladimir Kara-Murza, right, and Ilya Yashin, left, lift their arms after speaking during a demonstration under the slogan, “Stop Putin! Stop the War! Freedom for Political Prisoners!” in Berlin, Germany, on Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

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Freed Russian prisoners Ilya Yashin, Andrei Pivovarov and Vladimir Kara-Murza attend a news conference in Bonn, Germany, on Aug. 2, 2024, a day after they were released as part of an East-West prisoner swap. (AP Photo/Michael Probst, File)

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Yulia Navalnaya, head of the advisory board of the Foundation for Fighting Corruption, and the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Sept. 18, 2024 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

By DASHA LITVINOVA

The stunning news came in a terse statement from the Russian penitentiary service a year ago: Opposition leader Alexei Navalny had died in the Arctic Circle penal colony where he was serving a prison sentence.

In the year since the death of Navalny at age 47, the Russian opposition has struggled to find its footing against President Vladimir Putin.

Outlawed at home and operating from exile abroad without Putin’s fiercest foe, it has failed to form a united front and a clear plan of action against the Kremlin. Instead, rival groups have traded accusations that some see as efforts to discredit each other and vie for influence.

Navalny’s death was a blow to hope

Navalny’s death was “a point of no return” and left an impossible void to fill, said Oleg Ivanov, a supporter who left Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022 and lives in Los Angeles.

“Alexei was the only hope that Russia has, at least potentially and hypothetically, some kind of a meaningful leader who could unite all the people willing to change something in our country, in our lives,” Ivanov said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Ivanov, who joined the mass protests that erupted across Russia in 2017, said that since Navalny’s death, “I’m afraid that there is no one left who could somehow resist” the Kremlin.

Not PARSE.LY: Alexei Navalny

Lawyers Igor Sergunin, from left, Alexei Liptser and Vadim Kobzev, all who once represented late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, stand in a courtroom in Petushki, Vladimir region, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Friday, Jan. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

3 lawyers for the late Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny are convicted and sentenced to prison

Three lawyers for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are jailed by a Russian court

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears before the media after the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 28, 2024. (Mikhail Tereshchenko, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

2024 was a year of triumphs and setbacks for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Here’s how it unfolded

On the anniversary of his death Sunday, Navalny’s grave at the Borisovsky Cemetery in Moscow was covered with flowers and cards as supporters flocked to pay tribute to him. Western diplomats, including those from the U.S., U.K. and European Union, also came to to honor his memory.

Navalny’s parents were greeted with applause and calls of “Thank you!” from hundreds of people.

“We are mourning. We were mourning last year and we are mourning today. We really miss him,” said a Muscovite who gave only her first name of Anastasiia because she feared for reprisal. “There are no people like him anymore.”

Navalny is the second opposition leader whose sudden death shocked Russia and the world. In February 2015, prominent politician Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge near the Kremlin just days before he, Navalny and others were expected to lead a mass anti-Putin rally.

Millions viewed his anti-corruption videos

Navalny’s vision of a “beautiful Russia of the future,” where leaders are freely and fairly elected, corruption is tamed, and democratic institutions work, earned him widespread support in the vast country.

His charisma and sardonic humor drew young, energetic activists to his side — a team that resembled “a fancy startup” rather than a clandestine revolutionary operation, according to his memoir, “Patriot,” released eight months after his death.

Together they created colorful, professionally produced videos exposing corruption by government officials. Millions viewed them on YouTube and tens of thousands attended rallies even as authorities cracked down harder on dissent.

Attacks with dye, then a poisoning

As Navalny aspired to public office, authorities responded by bringing multiple criminal charges against him, his allies and even relatives. Regularly jailed, he was physically attacked by Kremlin supporters, one of whom threw green dye in his face that nearly cost him the vision in one eye.

He finished second in the race for Moscow mayor in 2013 amid allegations of vote rigging. In 2017, he announced plans to run for president and set up a sprawling network of regional offices across the country, recruiting local activists. When he was eventually barred from running, he kept those offices open, extending his reach across Russia’s 11 time zones.

In 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which always denied involvement. His family and allies fought to have him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery. Five months later, he returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested and imprisoned for the last three years of his life.

But even behind bars, in incredibly harsh conditions of constant pressure and surveillance, Navalny found a way to relay messages. His popular social media accounts were regularly updated with sarcastic vignettes about prison life and political statements.

Throngs attended his funeral in show of defiance

Authorities blamed Navalny’s death, announced Feb. 16, 2024, on natural causes — a sudden spike in blood pressure and chronic diseases. His family and allies reject that and insist he was killed on orders from the Kremlin — accusations its officials deny.

Tens of thousands of people attended his funeral March 1 at the Borisovsky Cemetery in a rare show of defiance in a country where any street rally or even single pickets often result in immediate arrest. For days afterward, people brought flowers to his grave.

At the cemetery on Sunday, Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila, once again called for those responsible for his death to be brought to justice.

“The whole world knows the person who ordered (it). But we want those who carried it out to be known, too,” she told reporters.

Longtime ally Vladimir Ashurkov described Navalny as “a political figure that basically defined the generation of Russians over the last 15 years.”

“While he was alive, even from prison, he was raising his voice against the war and against Putin’s tyranny,” Ashurkov told AP in London.

Putin’s exiled foes face ‘dark times’

His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has vowed to continue his fight. She has recorded regular video addresses to her supporters and has met Western leaders and top officials, advocating for Russians who oppose Putin and his war in Ukraine.

“We know exactly what we are fighting for. The Russia of the future that Alexey dreamt of - free, peaceful, beautiful - is possible. Let’s make everything to make his dreams come true,” she said in a video released Sunday to mark one year since her husband’s death.

Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation continues to expose corruption in Russia in colorful videos and organizes occasional protests abroad, condemning Putin and the war in Ukraine.

A landmark East-West prisoner swap in August freed other key dissidents like Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, promising to reinvigorate the opposition movement unmoored by Navalny’s death. So far, however, they haven’t gone beyond meetings with Western officials and supporters in exile, or a few rallies -– actions unlikely to dent Putin’s war effort or his ever-growing crackdowns that sweep up remaining dissidents and ordinary Russians alike.

Ashurkov describes the situation in Russia and Ukraine now as “dark times” and “difficult times.”

But he notes that Navalny went through many difficulties and pressure in his life.

“His advice and his motivation to all of us has been, ‘Don’t sit still. Try to do something to change the situation, and be prepared for change’,” he said.

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Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha in London contributed.