What’s next after the death of Russian opposition leader Navalny?

Many questions remain in the aftermath of the suspicious death of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

An outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the 47-year-old regime critic died on February 16 in a remote penal colony in the Arctic.

“In the long term, a figure like Navalny will be remembered as a martyr and inspiration by opposition movements,” says Matthew Lenoe, an associate professor of history at the University of Rochester, who is an expert on Soviet and Russian history.

Navalny rose to prominence exposing high-level corruption within Russia’s government, garnering international attention and becoming a powerful opposition symbol, which placed him squarely in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.

“Putin is paranoid about criticism because his regime is vulnerable and he has lost much of his former popularity,” says Randall Stone, a political science professor and the director of the university’s Skalny Center for Polish and Central European Studies.

Here, Lenoe and Stone discuss Putin’s intense fear of critics, the history of Russian and Soviet opposition movements, and what’s next for Russia’s dissidents:

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