Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a penal colony in his homeland in February, is predicted his fate in his memoirs, which are about to be published this month, reported France Press, quoted by BTA.
"I will spend the rest of my days in prison and I will die here," Navalny wrote back in March 2022, according to excerpts published yesterday from the book entitled "Patriot". According to the American publisher "Knopf" (Knopf) a Russian edition is also planned.
"There will be no one to say goodbye to (...) All birthdays will be celebrated without me. I will never see my grandchildren. I will not be subject to any family history. I will not be present at any photo,' added the Kremlin's number one opponent on March 22, 2022.
Navalny also described his typical day: getting up at 6 a.m., eating breakfast twenty minutes later, and starting the workday at 6:40 a.m. After seven hours behind the sewing machine in an awkward position, followed by several hours sitting on a wooden bench under a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was called "disciplinary activity".
Excerpts were published by the "New Yorker" magazine. Otherwise, the memoirs will be sold in bookstores from October 22.
Navalny died on February 16 at the age of 47 in a penal colony in the Arctic, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for "extremism" - accusations that he said were trumped up. He was detained immediately after returning to Russia in January 2021 from Germany, where he was receiving treatment after being poisoned the previous year.
According to the excerpts, Navalny was asked repeatedly by both prison officials and other inmates why he returned to Russia, knowing what awaited him.
"I do not want to abandon my country or betray it. If your beliefs mean anything, you must be prepared to defend them and make sacrifices if necessary,' he replied, according to the last entry in his peculiar prison diary, dated January 17, 2024.
"The only thing we have to fear is letting our homeland be robbed by a bunch of liars, thieves and hypocrites,” the anti-corruption activist wrote on the same day two years earlier.