By Sophie Tanno, Karl de Vries, Sana Noor Haq, Zoe Sottile, Michael Williams, Adrienne Vogt and Matt Meyer, CNN
From CNN's Sophie Tanno
Protesters have gathered outside the Russian embassies in European capital cities after news broke Friday that jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny had died.
Outside the embassy in Berlin, supporters of Navalny waved placards reading "Putin is a killer," and "Putin to the Hague."
In Paris, protesters held signs reading "Putin assassin," and "Putin is a murderer."
Meanwhile, outside the Russian embassy in London, flowers have been laid in honor of the outspoken Kremlin critic.
From Simon Cullen
In one of Alexey Navalny’s final court appearances before his death, he urged prison service workers to vote against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Video of his February 8 appearance was shared by Navalny’s supporters at the time.
"I have a suggestion: to vote for any candidate other than Putin. In order to vote against Putin, you just need to vote for any other candidate," Navalny said.
“I made a list of people I talk to and took upon myself, as my socialist duty, to give this recommendation for each one of them. And that is why I give it to you. And I hope you will follow it.”
A spokesperson said Friday that the Kremlin critic's lawyer is traveling to the Siberian penal colony where Navalny had been serving his sentence, after Russian prison officials announced his death. His mother said she had just seen Navalny for a visit this week, and he was "alive, healthy and cheerful."
From CNN's Arlette Saenz
US President Joe Biden has been briefed on reports of Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s death in prison, a White House official says.
From CNN's Tim Lister, Clarissa Ward and Sebastian Shukla
When Alexey Navalny was still recovering at a secret location in Germany in 2020, he duped a Russian spy — Konstantin Kudryavtsev — into revealing how the opposition figure was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny later shared details with CNN and the group Bellingcat, as part of an investigation which implicated the Russian Security Service (FSB) in Navalny’s poisoning. The reporting found that the FSB toxins team of about six to 10 agents trailed Navalny for more than three years.
At the time, the opposition figure posed as a senior official from Russia’s National Security Council tasked with carrying out an analysis of the poisoning operation. His phone number was disguised as that of the headquarters of the FSB, according to Navalny’s team and a recording of the call later provided to CNN and Bellingcat.
Navalny phoned Kudryavtsev, who provided a detailed account of how the nerve agent was applied to a pair of Navalny’s underpants. But the agent was not speaking to an official in Russia’s National Security Council as he thought: He was talking to Navalny himself, who almost died after being poisoned in August.
Navalny had long been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin, exposing corruption in high places and campaigning against the ruling United Russia party.
Russia denied involvement in Nalvany’s 2020 poisoning.
From CNN's Simon Cullen
Alexey Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, urged the international community to fight against Putin’s “horrific” regime after her husband's reported death on Friday.
She told delegates at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that she does not have confirmation about her husband’s death — only the reports via state media.
“I thought about it quite a while. I thought, 'Should I stand here before you, or should I go back to my children?' And then I thought: 'What would Alexey have done in my place?' And I’m sure he would have been standing here on this stage,” she said.
“I would like to call upon all the international community – all the people in the world. We should come together, and we should fight against this evil. We should fight this horrific regime in Russia today. This regime, and Vladimir Putin, should be personally held responsible for all the atrocities they have committed in our country.”
Navalnaya received a standing ovation for her address.
Remember: The exact circumstances of the opposition figure's death are unknown, but world leaders have roundly cast the blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his autocratic regime, to whom Navalny posed a huge political and symbolic threat.
From CNN's Sergey Gudkov
Alexey Navalny joked with a court judge in western Russia about how he was running short of money on Thursday — just hours before his reported death.
The late Kremlin critic appeared in court via video link.
“I will send you may bank account number so that you could warm it up a little from your huge salary as a federal judge because my money is running dry,” Navalny says in the video clip. “And because of the decision you took, that money will end even sooner,” adding that the “whole prison” should chip in.
Records from a court in Kovrov, Russia, in the Vladimir region confirm three hearings were scheduled for Thursday.
Navalny was arrested and detained when he returned to Russia in 2021, where he had been treated after being poisoned with the nerve agent, Novichok.
From CNN's David Rind
In 2022, the CNN Films documentary “Navalny” chronicled the aftermath of Alexey Navalny’s poisoning.
In the film, director Daniel Roher asked Navalny what message he would want to leave for the Russian people if he were to be killed.
“My message for the situation when I am killed is very simple: not give up,” Navalny said in English.
Then, Roher asked him to answer it in Russian.
“I’ve got something very obvious to tell you. You’re not allowed to give up,” Navalny said. “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power, to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes.
We don’t realize how strong we actually are. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. So don’t be inactive.”
Roher later told CNN’s David Rind on the ‘Tug of War’ podcast why he asked Navalny to switch languages.
“I thought that the power of that was quite significant and symbolic because he is now in prison in a gulag outside of Moscow,” Roher said. “Let the last word of this would-be president be to his people.”
A special encore of "CNN Films: Navalny" will air on CNN US and CNNI on Saturday, February 17 at 9 p.m. ET (Sunday 0300 CET).
From CNN's Simon Cullen
Alexey Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, has said Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government will be "brought to justice" for the death of her husband.
“I want them to know that they will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family, and with my husband,” she said at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, adding that she does not have confirmation of her husband’s death.
“They will be brought to justice and this day will come soon.”
The news of Navalny's death came on Friday as world leaders gathered at the conference in southern Germany, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Navalnaya and "expressed his condolences," according to a State Department spokesperson.
Stalwart figure: Navalnaya remained a staunch advocate of her husband as he rose to prominence first as a blogger, then as an outspoken opposition figure in Russia.
She remained largely outside the spotlight until August 2020, when her husband was poisoned with the nerve agent, Novichok. After he fell gravely ill, Navalnaya made regular media appearances to bolster her husband's campaign -- pushing her into the center stage of a battle with the Russian state.
Navalnaya, her late husband and their two children have been under constant surveillance by the Kremlin for years. But her image of a stoic, calm, and collected woman became a story in its own right.
CNN's Mary Ilyushina and Alex Marquardt contributed reporting.
From CNN's Nick Paton Walsh
The what is known, but the how may never be clear. It is the why that is already the largest question, after the untimely death of Alexey Navalny. We don’t know whether the Kremlin had a hand in his death, but they certainly failed in their duty of care of their most famous prisoner.
Why did this happen now? We know Putin can be calm, pragmatic and opportunistic. But this death comes at an unexpected time for Russia and the Kremlin. It does not seem that Putin needed Navalny to die now. The dissident’s voice had been quietened. He had been reduced to a whisper from the Arctic Circle, confined to a prison regime that might itself have proven a threat to the health of a man who had already survived a vicious poison attack on a plane in 2020.
Presidential elections are a month away. Navalny was not a candidate, and never stood a chance to be one in the closed system of managed democracy Putin has espoused since 2004. He was the most courageous and active opponent Putin faced for decades. Yet his imprisonment in Correctional facility number 3, up in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous region, served to some degree as a reminder of what happens to those who stand up to the Kremlin. And with his death, Putin is in a riskier position.
Globally, the focus has switched from Russia’s ascendancy and recovery in its illegal invasion of Ukraine, to its vicious silencing of even the quietest voices of dissent. The Munich Security Conference, set this morning to be an anxious series of reassurances from Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump’s recent remarks and the future of NATO, will now be reminded of Putin’s real and present threat to anyone to stands up to him.
Keep reading Paton Walsh's full analysis of Navalny's death.
