Thread by @RG_Horvath

It's a sign of our disjointed, disinformed times that I've been asked by a serious scholar for proof that @navalny 'actually tried to fight against the war' and was 'not of imperialist views.'

The proof is out there. It's not hard to find.

And it's irrefutable. 1/15

https://twitter.com/YMonastyrskyi/status/1846134522791776506

Soon after Putin launched his 'Special Military Operation,' @Navalny issued a statement from his prison cell in which he exhorted Russians to overcome fear, to go out into the streets and 'fight against the war.' 2/15 bit.ly/4h4E9TS

Navalny derided Putin's justification for the war as 'pseudo-historical nonsense'.

And he called on citizens to sacrifice themselves: 'If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons.' 3/15

Navalny elaborated his condemnation of the war on its first anniversary, when he issued a 15-point manifesto that lamented the human cost of the war, unequivocally rejected Russian imperialism, and set out his vision of a post-war settlement. 4/15 bit.ly/3NoVRDM

Navalny accused Putin of 'unleashing an unjust aggressive war against Ukraine under false pretences.' He highlighted that 'tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians have been killed, pain and suffering has been inflicted on millions, and war crimes have been committed.' 5/15

Rejecting Putin's imperial designs, he called for the recognition of Ukraine's 1991 borders. In other words, for the return of Crimea to Ukraine. Almost every border dissatisfied somebody, 'but one cannot wage war to change them in the 21st century.' 6/15

According to Navalny, Russia should: 'Leave Ukraine in peace and give it the chance to develop, as its people wish. Stop aggression, end the war, and withdraw all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.' 7/15

On reparations, he recommended that Russia should, 'jointly with Ukraine, the USA, the EU and Britain, seek an acceptable way for compensating the demand inflicted on Ukraine.' 8/15

In a nod to the ICC, which was yet to launch its genocide case against Putin, Navalny called on Russia 'to investigate war crimes in cooperation with international institutions.' 9/15

As for Russia's imperialism, he conceded that this was a problem: 'In Russia, as in any country with historical prerequisites for this, there will always be people with imperial views, but they are far from being the majority.... Such people must be defeated in elections.' 10/15

What made imperialism so harmful, according to Navalny, was Russia's shrinking population and dying countryside. In these circumstances, 'imperialism and the desire to seize territories is the most harmful and destructive path.' 11/15

'The Russian government is once again destroying our future with its own hands in order to make the country look bigger on the map. But Russia is already big. Our task is to preserve the people and develop what we have in abundance.' 12/15

How to achieve this on a political level was the subject of Navalny's September 2023 article advocating the dismantling of a Putin's super-presidential regime and the building of a parliamentary republic, on the model of the Baltic states. 13/15 bit.ly/4h6KqOI

In this political testament, Navalny condemned the Putin regime as an exemplar of 'endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind.' According to him, this imperial authoritarianism was 'the real curse of Russia and the cause of all its troubles.' 14/15

Only by changing the course of Russia's development could the cycle be broken. The solution was a 'parliamentary republic,' which would disperse power and prevent Putin's successors from unleashing wars as tools of domestic control. 15/15