Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at global reactions to Alexei Navalny’s death in Russia, top priorities at the Munich Security Conference, and money laundering arrests in Hong Kong.
Russia’s Last Major Opposition Figure Falls
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, 47, died at a remote penal colony known as “Polar Wolf” above the Arctic Circle, state authorities announced on Friday. He allegedly lost consciousness after going on a walk and could not be resuscitated. Navalny’s lawyer was unable to independently verify his death upon hearing the report but said he was heading to the prison to confirm.
Arrested in January 2021 after surviving a failed assassination attempt by Russia’s security services, Navalny was serving a cumulative 30-year prison sentence for a variety of charges largely seen as politically motivated. Although imprisoned, Navalny was the last major opposition figure still in the country, and his death leaves Russia’s opposition without a clear leader just one month before the country holds its presidential election. Incumbent President Vladimir Putin is expected to orchestrate a fifth reelection win, as all of his most high-profile critics are either dead, imprisoned, or exiled.
“Charismatic, controversial, and unquestionably brave, Navalny and his team doggedly exposed corruption among the country’s political elite, including by Russian President Vladimir Putin himself,” FP’s Amy Mackinnon writes.
Navalny last appeared in public on Thursday when he addressed a court via video. At the time, he appeared healthy and was seen cracking jokes. But his supporters have long raised concerns about poor prison conditions in Russia’s penal system, including crammed “punishment cells,” that negatively affected Navalny’s health.
Putin and his allies “will be punished for what they have done with our country, with my family, and with my husband,” Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, said at the Munich Security Conference on Friday. “They will be brought to justice, and this day will come soon.”
Western leaders were quick to condemn Putin’s suspected involvement in Navalny’s death. The Russian prison report is “yet more proof of Putin’s brutality,” U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan adding that “given the Russian government’s long and sordid history of doing harm to its opponents, it raises real and obvious questions about what happened here.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed these sentiments when she posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Navalny’s death is a “grim reminder of what Putin and his regime are all about.”
Next Saturday marks the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a key issue that Navalny rallied against while imprisoned. “Putin must lose everything and answer for what he has done,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said following the Navalny announcement.
Today’s Most Read
- Why a Demilitarized Palestine Won’t Work by Anchal Vohra
- Biden’s New Plan for the Middle East Is More of the Same by Matthew Duss
- What the Red Sea Crisis Reveals About China’s Middle East Strategy by Jon B. Alterman
What We’re Following
Davos of Defense. Top officials from around the world convened in Germany on Friday for the annual Munich Security Conference. According to FP’s Robbie Gramer and Jack Detsch, who are reporting on the ground in Munich for Situation Report, around 28 heads of government and state, 56 foreign ministers, 20 defense ministers, and 36 intelligence chiefs are in attendance at the so-called Davos of Defense alongside hundreds of senior dignitaries and business executives. Delegates from Russia and Iran were not invited.
News of Navalny’s death sparked outcry at the three-day summit on Friday. The conference is also expected to focus on the Russia-Ukraine war, conflict in the Middle East, rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, NATO expansion, and former U.S. President Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House. Trump’s recent comments seeming to encourage Putin to attack NATO members that don’t meet the 2 percent defense spending commitment are likely to be at the forefront of many attendees’ concerns, even as Putin said this week that he would prefer a second Biden presidency because Biden is “more predictable.”
Crime syndicate revealed. Hong Kong customs officials said on Friday that they had arrested seven people allegedly connected to the largest money laundering case in Hong Kong’s history. The transnational syndicate is said to have used shell companies and bank accounts to transfer around $1.8 billion into the city.
Hong Kong authorities said $371 million of that was possibly linked to a scam in India involving the sale of electronics, diamonds, gems, and precious metals. Law enforcement across the region, including in India, aided customs officials in their investigation. As part of the operation, officials seized more than $21 million worth of assets.
Hong Kong is one of the world’s leading financial hubs, but the crackdown on pro-democracy activities in recent years via a strict national security law imposed by Beijing has provided a “genuine hazard” for international businesses, Thomas Kellogg and Kaylee Morrison argued in Foreign Policy in 2021.
Egypt’s contingency plans. Egypt is building a walled enclosure in the Sinai Peninsula near its border with Gaza this week to potentially hold Palestinian refugees, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The move comes amid fears that an impending Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah could force thousands of Palestinians to flee over the border into Egypt.
The governor of Egypt’s North Sinai region denied the initial reports, arguing that construction was part of ongoing efforts to inventory houses that the Islamic State destroyed. However, Egyptian officials hinted at its existence when they said more than 100,000 people could be accommodated in the camp.
Egypt has also strengthened its border defenses by deploying more troops. Rafah shares a border with Egypt and is the area’s only major humanitarian aid crossing. More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million citizens are sheltering in the southern city to escape Israeli bombardments.
What in the World?
Argentina’s national statistics bureau on Wednesday announced that consumer prices had increased by how much year on year?
A. 97 percent
B. 165 percent
C. 210 percent
D. 254 percent
Odds and Ends
The University of the Philippines’s annual naked run brings a whole new meaning to risqué politics. Members of the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity donned masks—and stripped everything else—in Manila on Friday to protest proposed changes to the country’s constitution, with this year’s theme called “Cha-cha: A Step Backward.” The so-called Oblation Run began in 1977 to protest authorities banning a movie that discussed human rights abuses under then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s reign.
And the Answer Is…
D. 254 percent
Argentine President Javier Milei’s radical economic reforms are being carried out largely through emergency decree—which could lead Milei to flex more authoritarian muscles in the future, Jeremiah Johnson warns.
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