The video explores the life, activism, and perseverance of Alexei Navalny, a prominent Russian opposition leader, who was imprisoned and ultimately died under suspicious circumstances. Navalny emerged as a strong adversary to Vladimir Putin, challenging the Russian leader openly with accusations of corruption and dictatorship. Despite numerous obstacles, including arrests, a poisoning attempt, and harsh prison conditions, Navalny's resistance was unwavering, inspiring others to continue his fight against the regime even after his death.

Yulia Navalny, Alexei's wife, takes on the mantle of leadership in her husband's opposition movement following his untimely death. Displaying resilience in the face of adversity, she defies threats and maintains her resolve to advocate for Russian democracy and freedom. Despite the potential dangers to her life, Yulia remains steadfast, unwilling to live in fear, much like her husband did. Her continued activism underscores the ongoing battle against Putin's oppressive government.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. memoir [ˈmɛmwɑːr] - (noun) - A historical account or biography written from personal knowledge. - Synonyms: (autobiography, recollections, life story)

While behind bars, he completed a memoir documenting his three year battle to survive the unspeakable prison conditions.

2. opposition [ˌɒpəˈzɪʃən] - (noun) - Active disagreement or resistance against something or someone. - Synonyms: (resistance, objection, disapproval)

Navalny's popularity as the most prominent leader of the Putin opposition was growing.

3. defiant [dɪˈfaɪənt] - (adjective) - Boldly resistant or challenging authority. - Synonyms: (disobedient, insubordinate, rebellious)

Putin is a thief and the head of the entire corrupt system. He was defiant, brave for taking on the all powerful Vladimir Putin.

4. regime [reɪˈʒiːm] - (noun) - A government, especially an authoritarian one. - Synonyms: (administration, government, authority)

It was his life, it was his every minute job to fight with Putin's regime.

5. pro-democracy [proʊ-dɪˈmɒkrəsi] - (adjective) - Supporting or promoting democracy and democratic processes. - Synonyms: (democratic, freedom-supporting, egalitarian)

And more insults as he built a pro-democracy movement, opening offices all across Russia.

6. goading [ˈɡoʊdɪŋ] - (verb) - Provoking or annoying someone to stimulate a reaction. - Synonyms: (provoking, inciting, urging)

And you're goading them. These are people who are trying to steal my country.

7. solitary confinement [ˈsɒlɪtəri kənˈfaɪnmənt] - (noun) - A form of imprisonment where an inmate is isolated from any human contact. - Synonyms: (isolation, seclusion, segregation)

Those conditions, Navalny wrote in his diaries, included sleep deprivation, punitive solitary confinement, almost no medical care.

8. clandestine [klænˈdɛstaɪn] - (adjective) - Kept secret or done secretively, especially because illicit. - Synonyms: (covert, hidden, unacknowledged)

He says, I had to devise a whole clandestine operation to bamboozle the guards.

9. exile [ˈɛɡˌzaɪl] - (noun) - The state of being barred from one's native country. - Synonyms: (banishment, expulsion, deportation)

And I knew how important it was for him and I knew that he wouldn't be happy to live in exile

10. surveillance [sərˈveɪləns] - (noun) - Close observation, especially of someone suspected of wrongdoing. - Synonyms: (monitoring, supervision, watch)

He was under constant surveillance, cameras on him all the time, and he managed to get the pages out.

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexei Navalny, continues fight against Putin - 60 Minutes

The death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison in the Arctic this February sparked an outcry around the world. He was compared to Nelson Mandela as a prisoner of conscience. While behind bars, he completed a memoir documenting his three year battle to survive the unspeakable prison conditions. This is our third story on Navalny, the first in 2017, when he stood up to Vladimir Putin by running against him for President of Russia. When he was arrested in 2021, Navalny's popularity as the most prominent leader of the Putin opposition was growing.

Putin is a thief and the head of the entire corrupt system. He was defiant, brave for taking on the all powerful Vladimir Putin out in the open, denouncing him as a gangster. He refused to back down and paid the ultimate price. Three years in Russian prisons and then this year, death at age 47. His wife, Yulia, once her husband's silent partner, is now the leader of his opposition movement. She says Alexei's memoir, Patriot, represents his final act of defiance. It was his life, it was his every minute job to fight with Putin's regime and now he's fighting from the grave. I would prefer he would fight not from the grave. And of course it's very tough for me to say like this, but we can say so.

Over the summer, a Russian court issued an arrest warrant for her. It's a dangerous place to be. I don't care at all. You're not afraid? No, not really. Why should I be afraid? They could kidnap you, they could try to poison you. They could, but I don't want to live my life and to spend my life every day thinking about if they kidnap me today or tomorrow, if they are going to poison me today or tomorrow, not thinking about it. You know who you sound like? You sound like Alexei. He would say the same. I've been living with him more than 25 years. In that time, Alexei, trained as a lawyer, became Russia's most famous anti corruption activist and investigator, posting his findings online about bribes and kickbacks and evidence of the wealth Putin and his cronies had, as Navalny said, stolen from the Russian people.

And you're goading them. These are people who are trying to steal my country. And I strongly disagree with it. I'm not going to be, you know, a kind of speechless person right now. I'm not going to keep silent. He called Putin a madman who was sucking the blood out of Russia. And more insults as he built a pro democracy movement, opening offices all across Russia. It was a time when other Putin Opponents were dying in suspicious suicides. A car bombing. Dissident Boris Nemtsov was shot out in the open near the Kremlin. And Navalny himself was subjected to multiple arrests and beatings. An attack with green dots laced with a caustic chemical. And in 2020, an assassination attempt that he recounts in the beginning of his book.

He writes that shortly before he boarded a plane in Siberia, he was poisoned with a Soviet era military grade nerve agent. He collapsed, moaning in agony as his body began to shatter. Shut down. While he was in a coma at a Russian hospital, Yulia waged a campaign to pressure Putin to release Alexei so he could fly to Germany for treatment. We met them in Berlin about two months after the attack. You have said you think that Mr. Putin's responsible. I don't think. I'm sure that he's responsible.

He spent five months recovering in Germany. That's when he started writing the memoir. Then, In January of 2021, the Navalnys returned to Russia. When they landed, they were met by Russian police. He was arrested, said goodbye to his wife and was led away. This is a question you're going to be asked over and over and over, but it's almost the essential question. Why did you decide to go back? The two of you, you knew the danger for sure and do you regret it now? You asked me about our decision like we were sitting together and discussing if he needs to go back or he doesn't need to go back. It didn't work like this. From the first day when I realized that he could recover after this poisoning, I knew that he would go back as soon as possible.

So it wasn't even a debate. It was just when do we go back? As opposed to debates. And of course I would love to live all my life with my husband, but at that moment I knew that there is just one decision which he could take, and it was his decision. And I knew how important it was for him and I knew that he wouldn't be happy to live in exile. His arrest sparked protests across Russia. But far from disappearing in prison, Navalny managed to maintain a presence on social media. How? We've been asked not to say, but it enabled him to keep up his attacks on Putin.

Meanwhile, his team of investigators released drone footage of what they said was Putin's billion dollar palace on the Black Sea. It was viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube. It must have driven Putin insane. He locked him up and he's still getting the anti Putin message out. That's why his conditions were worse. From month to month. Those conditions, Navalny wrote in his diaries, included sleep deprivation, punitive solitary confinement, almost no medical care. And when none of that broke him, he was sent repeatedly to a concrete black hole called the punishment cell, where he would remain for up to 15 days at a time.

Here's how he described it. He said it was a doghouse, and this is the place where prisoners were sent to be tortured and raped and sometimes murdered. I wondered how you read those passages. I was thinking of you when I read it and thought, what is she feeling? How are you reading this? It's very tough moment for him to think about all these torturing places and torturing conditions and about him, how he was laughing at these people even while he was there. Navalny thought of his life in prison as his work, surviving and staying positive, his job.

I know one thing for sure, he wrote, that I'm among the happiest 1% of people on the planet, those who absolutely adore their work. I have enormous support from the people. And I met a woman with whom I share not only love, but who is just as opposed as I am to what is going on. Maybe we won't succeed, but we have to try. He wrote much of this book while he was in prison. He was under constant surveillance, cameras on him all the time, and he managed to get the pages out. Alexei was very smart. Smart, very inventive.

Let me read you what he says in the book. Okay, Tell you about this. He says, I had to devise a whole clandestine operation to bamboozle the guards involving the substitution of identical notebooks. And after that, we went to court where I was able physically to pass items to someone. It was very difficult. That's why we have diaries from the first year, much less from the second year and not from the third year, because it wasn't possible. These are some of the diaries he smuggled out when he went to court, which was often as he was tried and convicted several times on various pretexts. After each verdict, he was moved to a different prison with harsher conditions.

Last December, he was transferred to this penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. This would be his final court appearance. He looked healthy and in good spirits, sharing a laugh with court officials. The very next day, February 16, 2024, he was dead. Russian officials announced later that the cause was, quote, not criminal in nature and due to combined diseases. It was at the time that the negotiations over a prisoner swap were underway, and Alexei might be one of the prisoners who was to be released. Putin realized that Alexei is so big that he could be a new leader of Russia.

He could encourage people to stand against Putin. And all the things just brought Putin to this understanding that it's not possible to let Navalny be free. You posted a message shortly after his death. You said bravely, I thought, Vladimir Putin killed my husband. By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul. That's true. I can say now the same. Nothing has changed.

Here's something else you said. You posted this on X. Please do not forget Vladimir Putin is a murderer and a war criminal. His place is in prison, and not somewhere in the Hague in a cozy cell with a TV, but in Russia, in the same 2 by 3 meter cell in which he killed Alexei. For me, it's very important. I think that for Vladimir Putin, he needs to be in Russian prison to fill everything. Not just my husband, but all the prisoners in Russia.

His political network inside Russia has been crushed. Yulia and their two children have been forced to live in exile. Many of his old team now operate out of here in Vilnius, Lithuania. And three of his lawyers are on trial in Russia. I'm so happy you're here. And Yulia is constantly on the road lobbying Western leaders to stand up to Putin. So the question is inevitable. Painful, but inevitable.

Has Putin won? Has he shut down the opposition to such an extent that it's over, but it's not finished. We continue our fight. He still has millions of supporters. We can see it by how many people go still every day to his grave, how many flowers on his grave?

Politics, Inspiration, Leadership, Alexei Navalny, Opposition Movement, Human Rights Violations, 60 Minutes