Navalny dead, Avdiivka shattered - and the world watches and waits

Grief and anger

On Friday I came off a call with a source, opened my inbox and shouted ‘fuck’, clutching my chest. Navalny was dead, said a breaking news email from the New York Times. Alexei Navalny, the figurehead of Russia’s opposition movement, who had survived being poisoned by Novichok and being convicted on trumped up charges in Russia’s kangaroo courts, and shuffled around penal colonies where he was routinely ‘punished’ for minor infractions, Navalny was dead.

I am not here to write about his history or to put my oar in about his politics – although if you want to fill your boots with how grotesque Russia’s goons on the left and right of the political spectrum are, there are plenty of videos on Twitter telling you what you *should* think about a 47 year old man who was killed, leaving behind a grieving wife, mother, children. The awful glee and ugly conspiracies that some have offered up in the past two days is vomit-inducing.

I want instead to try and reflect on what Navalny’s death, coming at this specific moment, tells us about Putin’s kinetic and information wars of aggression.

As Navalny’s bereaved mother is forced to fight with Russian authorities over accessing her son’s body, in Avdiivka, families are grieving the loss of their loved ones, their homes, their futures, their city. The withdrawal of Ukrainian troops and Russia’s first “victory” since May last year, means another city destroyed, another community shattered. And when Russia occupies a region, war crimes follow. Let’s not forget Mariupol, let’s not forget the prisoners in the Donbas region, the victims of Izium, Irpin, Bucha.

The defeat of Avdiivka was not inevitable. There was a way to have a different ending to this story. The West could have stood by its promises to Ukraine. It could have provided the arms, provided the military aid. It could have kept its word, it could have remembered its grand speeches from 103 weeks ago when it said it would stand with Ukraine and do whatever it takes to secure Ukrainian victory.

Speaking to the Munich Security Conference, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy told world leaders that “keeping Ukraine in the artificial deficit of weapons, particularly in deficit of artillery and long-range capabilities, allows Putin to adapt to the current intensity of the war”. He explained how the slowing of weapons supplies was having a direct impact on the frontline and therefore forcing Ukraine to cede territory.

A friend of mine posted a photo on Instagram of Avdiivka a month before the start of the full-scale invasion. She is writing an article describing the city that is now just shattered, burnt out blocks, destroyed homes and lives, a road littered with corpses.

The West has given Putin a message these past few months. That message is: we will watch, and wait. And as we watch and wait, you are winning.

Navalny’s death was Putin giving a massive ‘fuck you’ to the world. He was telling the leaders prevaricating over how to respond to Ukraine, that he can do whatever he likes, with no consequences. He can preside over the death of the Western hope for Russian democracy, he can send his men out to trash memorials, he can round up protesters, and there is nothing any of his NATO ‘enemies’ can do to stop it.

Seriously, with enemies like these, who needs friends.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We need to get our act together - to show Ukraine that we will not stop, we will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, for them to win. We need to stand up and say that we will not accept a compromise that damns thousands of people to a life of persecution, violence and fear under occupation. We need to hand over the spare artillery and ammunition that could turn the tide in places like Avdiivka. We need to stop saying words of threat to Putin, and renew that commitment which meant a year ago, 18 months ago, Putin really was under pressure.

Because until we do that, all we are doing is signalling that we will be ok with Putin winning. We are signalling to Putin that we are too weak, too unresolved, too divided, to rally together and do what it takes to stop this war. And that is what Putin is counting on. That is why his regime spent the previous decade sowing division across the West. So that when the showdown happened, we would fail to stop him.

Sometimes I feel like I am going crazy watching this. Don’t you see, I feel like screaming, what will happen if Putin is allowed to win? Don’t you understand what that means not just to people in Ukraine, but to Europe? To you? To me?

There is a choice to be made. And right now, I feel so little hope that the West is brave enough to make the right one. Putin knows that. He feels that. Are you prepared to give him what he wants? Are you prepared for his next big ‘fuck you’?

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What I’m writing

I made my debut in The Big Issue this week, writing about the privatisation of foster care in England, with Sophia Alexandra Hall.

'This has to stop': How privatisation of foster care turned vulnerable children into 'gold bars'

It’s going quiet on the writing front while I research a few big investigations, but I’ll share whatever I do write, when I write it.

What I’m loving

From my new home again this week, from Diana Cariboni and Sydney Bauer at openDemocracy, regarding anti-abortion funding in the US.

Non-profit behind ‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl ads is main funder for US hate group

What I’m reading

Arkady by Patrick Langley was one of my fave debuts of recent years, so I picked up The Variations and it is wildly different and wildly good.

I’m still on my Alison Weir Tudor Queens novels.

And this morning I started reading Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy which has been on my Kindle for ages and is as good as everyone says it is.

What I’m watching

I think I am going to ditch TV and get into podcasts. I am not really watching very much but I am re-watching This Country because I love it. And True Detective: Night Country.

Stand with Ukraine

Next Saturday - 24 Feb - is the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is a solidarity demo taking place in London, 1.30pm at Marble Arch, and I am going and you should too. Let’s show the world that Putin is not winning, that we can and must stand with Ukraine, and that we want our leaders to do what it takes for as long as it takes.

Ciao ciao