Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin, died on Friday while imprisoned in Russia. Navalny's death comes as the American conservative movement has grown sympathetic to Putin, an autocrat whose political enemies have a long history of dying under mysterious circumstances. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been at the forefront of the right-wing cult of the Russian president, and just days before Navalny's death he defended the nation's alleged political assassinations.
Carlson did it while talking to me Egyptian journalist Emad El Din Adeeb at the World Government Summit in Dubai on Monday, a week after he interviewed Putin in Moscow. Adeeb wondered why Carlson hadn't pressed the Russian president on “freedom of speech in Russia” and why he “didn't talk about Navalny, about assassinations, about restrictions on the opposition in the next election.”
Carlson replied that he has spent his life talking to people who run countries in different countries, and he came to the conclusion: That every leader kills people, including my leader,” he said. “Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires you to kill people, sorry, that's why I wouldn't want to be a leader.”
“Press suppression is universal in the United States, I know because I've lived through it,” he continued. “So at a certain point, it's like people can decide if they believe, which countries they think are better, which systems they think are better. I just want to know what he thinks, that was the whole point.'
The response was surprising at the time, but Navalny's death a few days later cast an even more sinister allegation.
Carlson interviewed Putin last week in a rare meeting between the Russian president and an American media personality. The interview was widely characterized as a landslide propaganda victory for the Kremlin, and Putin even complained to Russian media that Carlson's questions were too soft.
On Friday, Russia's prison service said Navalny felt unwell after taking a walk and lost consciousness. He was serving a 19-year sentence on controversial extremism-related charges. “Facility medical staff arrived immediately and an ambulance brigade was called,” the prison service said in a statement. “All the necessary resuscitation measures were taken, which did not lead to positive results. The ambulance doctors confirmed the death of the condemned man.”
The Russian government's claims about Navalny's death were met with immediate skepticism. His wife, Yulia Navalny, made a surprise appearance at the Munich Security Conference shortly after the news of her husband's death and claimed that the Putin government could not be trusted because they “lie all the time”.
“I want Putin and his entire circle to know that they will be held accountable for what they did to our country, my family and my husband,” she said. “And that day will come very soon.”
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tucker-carlson-putin-navalny-assassinations-1234969774/