Putin's fiercest critic wrote a memoir before his death in prison. Now it's being published

The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny started writing the memoir after recovering from nerve agent poisoning in 2020.

Only Alexei Navalny's inner circle knew about the memoir, titled Patriot. Source: AAP / Pavel Golovkin/AP

Key Points

• Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny started writing the memoir after he survived being poisoned in 2020.
• His widow Yulia has revealed the memoir will be published later this year, in at least 11 different languages.
• Navalny died aged 47 in an Arctic prison in February.

A memoir written by Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny will be published posthumuously later this year.

Navalny, who died aged 47 in an Arctic prison in February, had wanted to become president of Russia and was Vladimir Putin's fiercest domestic critic.

His allies, branded extremists by the authorities, have accused Putin of having him murdered.

The Kremlin has denied any state involvement in his death.

Yulia Navalnaya, his widow, said her late husband started to write the memoir, titled Patriot, in 2020 after he had been poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok and taken to Germany for treatment.

In posts to X from outside Russia, she said the book would be released in Navalny's native Russian and at least 11 different languages on 22 October.

"This is not at all how I imagined Alexei would write his biography. I thought that we would be in our 80s, and that he would be sitting at his computer by the open window and be typing away," Navalnaya said.

"But things turned out the way they did. Horribly and very, very unfairly. Nevertheless, Alexei started writing a book at that time (in 2020) and was unexpectedly quickly drawn into the process.

"He liked to recall the events of his life in connection with events in the country. For example, he enjoyed describing his childhood," Navalnaya said.

His wife hopes readers "come to know the man [she] loved deeply – a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage.”

Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokesperson, said Navalny had started to dictate parts of the book to her while he was convalescing in Germany two months after his poisoning and that he had finished the book when in prison after returning to Russia in 2021.

The autobiography is being published in the United States by Knopf and Vintage in the United Kingdom.

The book is unlikely to be readily available in Navalny's native Russia, where the authorities outlawed his movement as extremist and cast his supporters as US-backed troublemakers out to foment revolution.

Putin last month called Navalny's death "sad" and said he had agreed to hand over the jailed politician as part of a foreign prisoner exchange provided he never return to Russia.