Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was killed on Friday in a prison north of the Arctic Circle. Blame games are useless when a political prisoner dies, writes Garry Kasparov in an editorial for The Wall Street Journal.

There are no natural causes in the Gulag, there are no accidents in the Gulag. This is a crime committed by a dictatorship, as obvious as if Vladimir Putin himself pulled the trigger.

Putin unsuccessfully tried to kill Navalny quietly and quickly with poison in 2020, and now he killed him slowly and publicly in prison. Navalny’s only crime was to expose the gangsterism of Putin and his mob, and to do so with humor and charisma.

Navalny and I disagreed on many points about Russia’s past and future, as did he and many others in the huge anti-Putin coalition. But we agreed that Putin had to go, and that none of our differences would matter until that happened.

Now Alexei is dead, and with him the Russian society, which betrayed him, betrayed Russia and betrayed the whole world with its apathy, breathed its last. He was a man of optimism and activity in a country of nihilism and inaction, a tragic plight he shared with me and our colleague Boris Nemtsov, who returned to Russia in 2015 only to be mowed down by bullets outside the Kremlin.

It was Putin who killed Navalny, but there is enough guilt to share with others. First, we Russians, who could not rise to the courage of Navalny and put an end to Putin’s dictatorship, cannot avoid responsibility. Some of us tried, and he marched with us, taking to the streets in numbers that would now seem fantastic. This was not enough.

Is it wrong to wonder what it would be like? What if we were as brave as the Ukrainians a few years later, when they took to the streets and risked their lives for freedom?

Probably the last and best chance was a mass demonstration in Moscow on December 24, 2011, after which the regime began to brutally suppress such actions. Navalny must have felt the stakes of the moment when it was his turn to go on stage under the gaze of tens of thousands of protesters.

“I see that there are enough people here to capture the Kremlin and the White House [sediul guvernului federal – n.a.] now. We are a peaceful force and we will not do this now. But if these swindlers and thieves will continue to try to deceive us, if they will continue to tell lies and steal from us, we will take ours with our own hands!”

Would people follow us? Would thousands of policemen open fire – or join us? Would we be free now – or long dead? Regret for inaction is ten times stronger than regret for action.

Part of the blame lies with Western politicians, who saw Navalny’s poisoning in 2020 and his imprisonment the following year only as leverage in negotiations with Putin. Lots of talk, zero action, and more futile peace talks and dirty deals – and more blood on their hands.

President Biden’s threat in 2021 of “devastating” consequences if anything happens to Navalny in prison will now be severely scrutinized. After decades of killing and aggression, Putin has crossed another red line drawn in blood. He is sure that there will be no consequences. And if he is proven right, his murderous confidence will take on even greater proportions.

Ukraine is the weak link in Putin’s armor. Biden cannot hide behind Republican obstruction of aid to Kyiv, no matter how odious it may be. The US president does not need congressional approval to send long-range artillery such as ATACMS and warplanes to Ukraine, which are needed to protect civilians from Russia’s continued bombing.

Nor can Biden blame Trump for not seizing more than $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets to support Ukraine. The seizure and sale of yachts and luxury real estate owned by Putin and his oligarchs would also be a fitting tribute to Navalny, whose anti-corruption campaigns exposed these looted riches.

But I fear that Western politicians would prefer that dissidents become martyrs. So when negotiating with the killer, they can put flowers and say nice words. No one blames them for this hypocrisy. Navalny was first and always a fighter, and if Biden, Germany’s Olaf Scholz and others are not going to fight, they better refrain from saying his name with their forked tongues.

We could also use this tragic moment to shame those who openly support Putin, from Viktor Orbán and Donald Trump to propagandists like Tucker Carlson and supporters like Elon Musk. But should we still worry since they can’t feel shame?

Carlson was just in Moscow for a flattering interview with Putin, after which he made a series of clips in which he marveled at Russian supermarkets and subway stations. The analogies drawn with communist advocates such as Walter Duranty are apt. But here is more, worse. This is a concrete campaign to promote Putin’s bloody dictatorship, to normalize his regime and his war crimes. If he were still in Moscow, Carlson would have had the opportunity to marvel at the astonishingly low cost of human life under Putin’s dictatorship.

Why did he kill Navalny now? It is clear that Putin has found the right conditions to safely carry out the crime, and being a coward and a tyrant, he will always be at his most dangerous when he thinks he is safe and victorious. Consider why he feels this way, with US aid to Ukraine stalled in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Biden looking helpless and Trump leading in the polls.

At the Munich Security Conference, an annual international forum, Navalny’s assassination threatened to overshadow the daily killings of innocent Ukrainians by the same hand. NATO and the leaders of the free world stand by while Ukrainians shed blood. If Biden and the rest of the free world really want to deal a “devastating” blow to the Kremlin assassin, all they need to do is put the necessary weapons into Ukrainian hands.

The West now seems intent on imitating Russian apathy in the face of Putin’s aggression, and the result will be the same. He will become even bolder and the price of his foot will continue to rise. The risk to Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Poland will continue to rise, along with the risk to other political prisoners, such as activist Volodymyr Kara-Murza and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Hershkovich. Hershkovich was arrested in March on espionage charges, which he, his newspaper and the US government strongly deny.

Alexei Navalny was a man of courage and deeds, and now only courage and deeds can honor his memory.

The article was published with the support of the Rador Radio Romania agency