This picture shows a mockup of the punishment cell of imprisoned Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny on March 14, 2023, in Paris. For the past two years, 46-year-old Alexei Navalny has been held outside Vladimir, a town around 230 kilometres (145 miles) east of Moscow after an embezzlement conviction, one of several rulings Navalny has denounced as an attempt to silence him. Navalny on March 15, 2023, praised people who stand up against dictatorship and war, while thanking the team that made an Oscar-winning film about his 2020 poisoning. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
MOSCOW, Russia—Jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny on Wednesday praised people who stand up against dictatorship and war, while thanking the team that made an Oscar-winning film about his 2020 poisoning.
The movie that won the best documentary feature award at the Oscars ceremony retraces Navalny’s political rise, his poisoning which he blames on the Kremlin, and his subsequent arrest.
“I dedicate my entire contribution to this film to honest and courageous people across the world who day after day find the strength to confront the monster of dictatorship and its constant companion, war,” Navalny said on Twitter.
“I am, of course, terribly glad, but while rejoicing, I try not to forget that it wasn’t me who won the Oscar,” he said.
He thanked the team who made the movie, including Canadian director Daniel Roher, Navalny’s longtime ally Maria Pevchikh and Bellingcat investigative journalist Christo Grozev
Navalny also thanked his wife Yulia, who was in Hollywood for the Oscars ceremony on Sunday, March 12.
He was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had recovered from the infamous poison attack.
The 46-year-old learned about the film prize from his lawyer, who told him via video-link during a court case.
“I had a very strange feeling at that moment,” Navalny said.
“It was as if those words didn’t even belong in this world, but, on the other hand, everything here is so weird and crazy that it feels like that’s the only world they belong in.”
Navalny has frequently criticized the Ukraine offensive from prison and called on Russians to protest.
Recently, he called for the respect of Ukraine’s borders of 1991, which include the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Asked about the award, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Hollywood “politicizes” the cinema industry. /ra
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