American politicians are "honoring" Navalny by brazenly misrepresenting his views

Funeral procession of Navalny in Moscow, March 1, 2024 — via Getty Images

American politicians have been systematically deceiving the public since Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition figure, died in an Arctic prison last month. Seemingly within seconds of the death being reported, elected officials far and wide began boisterously proclaiming that to honor Navalny’s legacy, the US Congress must swiftly pass the next round of military “aid” to Ukraine. Which at $61 billion — the amount already approved by the Senate — would be the single biggest infusion of US weaponry to Ukraine since the start of the war.

The body may have still been warm as Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) rushed to the nearest TV studio to declare that “avenging the death of the hero Navalny” requires the House of Representatives to promptly sign off on subsidizing another year or two’s worth of bitter trench warfare in Ukraine. Where exactly did Klobuchar get the idea that Navalny, whose heroism she so confidently hailed, was a supporter of flooding US munitions into the war zone? Navalny is not known to have ever espoused such a view. But Klobuchar was far from the only one making this curious assumption. Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH), who rushed nearly as quickly as Klobuchar to the closest TV studio, boldly pronounced that “as a result of Navalny’s death, we should even be that much more strong in funding Ukraine.” The eventual bill coming out of the House and Senate, Turner gamely proposed, should be dedicated to Navalny.

Countless other American and European politicians have made the same curious point: that Navalny’s death ought to accelerate the push for additional Ukraine war funding. But they can never seem to identify a single instance of Navalny advocating for this policy — the avowed goal of which is to kill more Russian soldiers. And when you stop to think about it for two seconds, why would Navalny ever endorse such a policy? It makes zero sense. 

While languishing in the remote Arctic prison, Navalny recently did endorse the 2024 presidential candidacy of Boris Nadezhdin, a Russian “anti-war” political figure who has since been blocked from appearing on the ballot. Like Navalny, Nadezhdin declared his opposition to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, calling it “a fatal mistake” by Vladmir Putin. But by no means did this ever equate, somehow, to either Nadezhdin or Navalny actively supporting the greater infliction of death on Russian soldiers. The very idea is absurd.

Did American political figures who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq necessarily support the further killing of US soldiers? Of course not. By and large, they simply wanted the US soldiers out of Iraq, and they were against the war management of George W. Bush. Aside from a trivial activist fringe that might have exhibited vague sympathies for the Islamist militias fighting American troops, most “anti-war” political figures of this era with any degree of mainstream political aspiration certainly would not have supported facilitating additional artillery bombardments of US soldiers. Yet, that’s effectively the same position being absurdly ascribed post mortem to Navalny — despite his obvious aspirations for mainstream appeal in Russian society. Navalny ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and received over 600,000 votes, followed by a run for president of Russia in 2018, although he, like Nadezhdin this year, was blocked from appearing on the ballot. (Nadezhdin attended Navalny’s funeral in Moscow on Friday.) The idea of Navalny supporting the death of Russian soldiers in Ukraine makes no more sense than 2004 “anti-war” presidential candidate Howard Dean supporting the death of American soldiers in Iraq, despite Dean’s campaign largely being predicated on his opposition to that war. 

It seems the American politicians who claim to be oh-so-sincerely honoring Navalny’s legacy have no qualm whatsoever about flagrantly misrepresenting Navalny’s actual views. Which might lead one to question the sincerity of their fulsome mourning rituals.

In a speech at the European Parliament this week, the widow of Navalny conspicuously did not call for sending weapons to Ukraine. Instead, Yulia Navalnaya said that sending weapons to Ukraine had been a fruitless exercise. “There is much exhaustion, much blood, much disappointment,” she lamented. “And Putin has gone nowhere. Everything has already been used: weapons, money, sanctions. Nothing is working.”

Assuming that Navalnaya shares roughly the same “anti-war” views as her late husband, the sentiments she expressed are reminiscent of what might be reasonably expected of a bonafide Russian “anti-war” figure — namely, calling for an end to the war, i.e. a cessation of hostilities, and criticizing Putin for launching the invasion in the first place. Certainly not calling for the war to continue, so more corpses of young Russian men can pile up in the ghastly frozen trenches.

Yulia Navalnaya addresses the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France on February 28, 2024 — via Getty Images

But naturally, this hasn’t stopped the usual crowd of American politicians from opportunistically seizing on Navalnaya’s public grief to demand the opposite of what she articulated in her speech. Because what’s entailed by the additional provision of US arms to Ukraine is a continuation and intensification of the war — not a termination of it. Undaunted, Joe Biden used a somber personal meeting with Navalnaya last week in San Francisco to bolster his key legislative priority: expedited passage of the $96 billion “national security” funding bill, despite a very clear statement from Navalnaya on the futility of the war-perpetuating strategy the bill is plainly designed to effectuate.

The blatant disregard for Navalny and his widow’s actual views is, as usual, thoroughly bipartisan. Mike Pompeo, the former Secretary of State under Donald Trump, wasted no time declaring the death of Navalny just another sign that Biden had feebly failed to “deter Putin’s evil” — and that Biden needed to quit worrying so much about “escalation” in Ukraine. What exactly Pompeo might envision a more carefree US administration doing in Ukraine is not entirely clear, but we may find out soon enough — Pompeo was one of the relatively few major cabinet officials in the first Trump Administration to not have an explosive personal falling-out with Trump, and therefore was able to exert considerable influence throughout the duration of the term. It’s not at all implausible that he could do so again.

In any event, those who claim to bemoan the growing partisan divisions in US society ought to be extremely heartened by this resolute bipartisan eagerness to brazenly exploit Navalny’s death.

---