Navalny, the film about the poisoning that nearly killed Russia’s most famous opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and his detention after returning to Moscow in 2021, won the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Next to director Daniel Roer on stage, Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalna said: “My husband is in prison only because he told the truth. My husband is in prison only for defending democracy. Oleksiy, I dream of the day when you will be free and our country will be free. stay strong my love thank you.”

The CNN Films/HBO Max documentary follows Navalny as he recovers in Germany after being poisoned in Siberia with a Soviet-era neurotoxin that Western countries believe was an assassination attempt by the Russian state to silence a critic of President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin denies its involvement.

In the documentary, Navalny collaborates with the news outlet Bellingcat, which exposes the FSB agents who were sent to poison Navalny in 2020.

“Don’t stop fighting for democracy and freedom”

Navalny, pretending to be a Russian official, calls one of the agents, who describes the poisoning plot.

He decides to return to Russia in January 2021 with Yulia, and crowds of supporters await him. He is arrested at the airport and then sentenced to 11.5 years in prison in two separate fraud cases, which he says were fabricated to silence him.

His anti-corruption organization was banned and recognized as extremist.

“Alexey, the world has not forgotten your important message to all of us. We must not be afraid to stand up to dictators and authoritarianism wherever they raise their heads,” Roer said at the award ceremony, alongside Navalny’s wife, daughter and son.

Daughter Daria Navalna said she was “very happy that the film is getting the attention it deserves.”

“Don’t stop fighting for democracy and freedom around the world, and we will get my father out of prison and keep fighting,” she said in an interview.

“You are not allowed to resign”

Navalny, 46, is the most famous of the few Russian opposition figures serving time in a maximum-security penitentiary in Russia. Supporters say his health deteriorated after about 12 periods in solitary confinement.

After a failed appeal in May against one of the convictions, Navalny called Putin a convicted lunatic who had launched a “stupid war” against Ukraine that is killing innocent people in both Ukraine and Russia.

At the end of the film, Navalny is asked what his message would be to the Russian people if he were killed.

“You’re not allowed to throw,” he replied.