Navalny a final straw for action

Fears that imprisoned Russian dissident leader Alexei Navalny, 44, may be only “a matter of days” away from dying add urgency to the need for concerted global action to confront the monstrous behaviour of Vladimir Putin’s rogue regime. Rightly, the Biden administration has warned of “serious consequences” for Mr Putin if Mr Navalny, who has been on a hunger strike in the notorious hellhole known as the IK-2 prison, east of Moscow, since March 31, does die. It is imperative that Washington makes good on that pledge and countries everywhere that value freedom and human rights join it in doing so.

As grim as the outlook for Mr Navalny may appear, however, his horrifying fate is only part of a broader spectrum of wide-ranging malfeasance and belligerence by Moscow that demands a strong response from the international community, not the US alone. Mr Putin’s menacing deployment of tens of thousands of Russian troops and armour along the border with Ukraine suggests he is preparing to resume the assault on Ukraine he began seven years ago as part of his revanchist dream to re-create the former Soviet Union. Last Friday Joe Biden provided further insight into Russia’s behaviour when — backed by Western nations including Australia — he imposed sweeping new sanctions on Moscow for brazen cyber espionage and attempts to interfere in elections in the US and other democratic countries. They include the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and sanctions against 32 organisations or individuals accused of trying to meddle in elections and spread disinformation. They also include six technology companies spying for Russia.

The US said it was highly likely Moscow was behind last year’s massive hack that targeted software made by American company SolarWinds and that affected at least 200 organisations worldwide, including NATO, the European parliament and government agencies in Washington. Australia expressed strong support for Washington’s determination “to hold Russia to account for its harmful cyber campaign” against SolarWinds. A statement spoke of Australia having “witnessed … Russia use malicious activity to undermine international stability, security and public safety”. More insight into ongoing Russian bad behaviour emerged on Saturday when the Czech Republic blamed a series of 2014 explosions at Czech ammunition dumps on an elite unit of Mr Putin’s military intelligence services — the same unit responsible for the 2018 novichok terrorist attack in Salisbury, England that targeted dissident former Russian spy and Putin adversary Sergei Skripal.

Mr Biden deserves credit for going where Donald Trump inexplicably refused to go in confronting Mr Putin. The US President has described the former KGB colonel as a killer. On Saturday Mr Biden said the appalling treatment meted out to Mr Navalny by Mr Putin’s thugs was “totally, totally unfair, totally inappropriate”. Having survived an attempt last August by Kremlin agents to kill him using nerve gas that seriously weakened his immune system, Mr Navalny is in prison on trumped-up charges of violating parole on previous charges.

On Monday Russia’s prison service said Mr Navalny was being moved to a hospital. It added that he had agreed to take vitamins. But the free world must remain alert to his plight. Given all she did to help get Mr Navalny to Germany for treatment after he was poisoned by the Kremlin’s assassination squad, it is hard to believe German Chancellor Angela Merkel still seeks to justify co-operative schemes such as the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany. Deepening European dependence on Russian energy was always a thoroughly bad idea. Mr Putin’s constantly thuggish conduct makes it even more so. Time is long overdue for the free world to get tough with Mr Putin. It needs to find its voice again on behalf of courageous opponents of oppression and corruption such as Mr Navalny, just as it did in focusing on the plight of those such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov when they were targeted by Soviet communist oppression during the Cold War.