Alexey Navalny Is The Only Politician In Russia Who Tries To Fight Putin. This Is His Story.

The Guardian interviewed Alexey Navalny — the man who, for the first time in five years, managed to get thousands of people into the streets to protest corruption in Russia. 

For the last few years, Navalny has been the main opposition politician in Russia. He never occupied a single elected post, but he has launched and continues to run several projects focused on public accountability. The most prominent of them is his Anti-Corruption Foundation — the NGO that runs and publishes investigations into corrupt Russian politicians. In 2013, he ran for mayor of Moscow and got 27% of the vote — without a minute spent on public television. This seemed to be the peak of his career and a dangerous moment for the current regime — until in 2014, Crimea upended the political landscape entirely.

In this interview, Shaun Walker touches upon the hard topic of Navalny's nationalism: even though now this theme is mostly absent from his speech, he does not regret his past. And this final part of his profile is a good illustration of modern Russian liberals' struggle today: as much as one might sympathize Navalny's struggle against corruption, for those who are wary of his nationalism (as well as blatant sexism coming from his team), there is simply no other option.