After the shock of Alexei Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison, Russian dissidents in exile are vowing to pick up the pieces and press on with their battle against President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
“Of course we will cry in our bedrooms and bathrooms but publicly we’ll definitely continue fighting against the regime with all our methods,” Evgeny Nasyrov, coordinator of the Free Navalny campaign in Germany, said.
For Mr. Nasyrov, Opposition supporters must keep up the fight because seeing them “demotivated and scattered around” is exactly what Mr. Putin wants.
Mr. Nasyrov, who left Russia shortly before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, is part of Navalny’s team of Opposition supporters doing what they can to campaign from outside Russia.
He has been pounding the phone lines to Russia, trying to rouse people to head to the polls at noon on March 17, the final day of voting in the presidential election, in a show of strength against Mr. Putin.
“Even if people won’t vote, even if they’re not Russian, we want there to be crowds,” said Mr. Nasyrov, who is also urging people in Russia to talk about the war in Ukraine.