The West hopes from afar that Alexei Navalny (1976-2024) will be remembered as the man who, by his death, triggered the first real stirrings of uprising against Vladimir Putin’s ironclad tyranny.

Thousands attended his funeral on Friday in one of the most open displays of defiance against the Kremlin since the inception of Putin’s presidency at the dawn of the millennium.

Navalny died in the most contemptible circumstances, left to languish in a Siberian penal colony, mocked by the Kremlin who claim he died of “sudden death syndrome”.

But, upon the eventual return of his body for burial in Moscow, crowds flocked to the funeral. Surrounded by Russian guards, they chanted Navalny’s name and played the soundtrack to Terminator 2, his favourite film.

Some called out Putin as a murderer. Others chanted “no to war,” aggrieved by the continual bloodshed of Putin’s ‘special military operation,’ and the hundreds of thousands Russian soldiers never to return home.

While this defiance against the Kremlin could be construed as a crack in Putin’s authoritarian control, many who attended the funeral were afraid. They felt threatened by the police presence and very few gave their name to reporters for fear of their own safety.

So far, 45 people are known to have been arrested for attending Navalny’s memorials, according to OVD-Info, an independent rights monitor.

And it’s no surprise. Putin is well-known for the brutal neutralisation of his opponents, not just on Russian soil. The Kremlin’s long hand stretches far beyond its own frontiers, deep into Europe. Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with a novichok nerve agent in Salisbury, England, in March 2018.

Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security agent, was poisoned with polonium-210 and died in London on November 23, 2006.  These are just the incidents we know of.

In a sign of how far Putin’s crackdown on dissent has gone, most of Navalny’s family remained in exile and did not attend the funeral, most notably his wife Yulia Navalnaya.

Yet, she has emerged from his death in fighting spirit, vowing to continue his political work. She called on others to stand with her in rage against those responsible for her husband’s death. 

She addressed the European Parliament, urging innovative strategies to defeat Putin’s regime and emphasising the need to target Putin’s associates and financial supporters to combat organised crime. She also called on the EU to refuse to recognise Russia’s pre-destined election in March.

Navalny will not just die a hopeless martyr, a futile symbol of meek resistance against an all-powerful tyranny. The ongoing war in Ukraine has sparked significant resistance within Russia, with a large number of men escaping the draft.

Some guerrilla groups are calling for more violent measures, believing that the non-violent resistance of those of Navalny’s ilk may have reached its end.