Activist and anti-corruption crusader Alexi Navalny, a long-time thorn in the side of Vladimir Putin and the thieving oligarchs who have looted that sad nation until just gnawed bones and regurgitated gristle remain. Details of his death are scant and whether he was killed by a fellow 'Zek', or he fell out a window, as Mr. Putin's opponents are wont to do, doesn't really matter. Mr. Navalny was brave in a way that is difficult for westerners to understand.
He loved his family and his Rodina in equal measure, and returned to Russia even in the face of repeated asassination attempts.
He made the fatal mistake of speaking truth to power, for one thing autocrats like Mr. Putin fear most is the cleansing effects of sunshine.
Like cockroaches and earwigs, autocrats like Mr. Putin flourish best in the dark. The people over whom they rule suffer, both spiritually and economically. The longer that the autocrats dominate the economy, the worse that the common people fare, for instead of functioning as a Commonwealth, wherein the resources of the state are devoted to the needs of her people, an autocratic government functions as a 'kleptocracy', essentially a government by and for thieves. And people doomed to live under the yoke of the 'Big Man' often suffer a crisis of the spirit; a learned helplessness that cripples the soul.
“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”
