Alexey Navalny became a laureate of the German “Bamba” award

Russian opposition politician Aleksey Navalny became the laureate of Germany’s oldest journalism prize, “Bemba”. Navalny was awarded an award in the “Courage” category. At the award ceremony in Munich, the prize was presented by the chairman of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and received by her politician wife, Yulia Navalnaya, and their son, Zakhar.

Ursula von der Leyen highly appreciated Navalny’s activities in the field of corruption investigations in Russia. “What your husband, what your father does for us, and for the whole world, is difficult to express in words,” she told Julia and Zakhar Navalny. “This indomitable person deserves our solidarity. We must carry his message of peace until until he hopefully can’t do it again himself.”

Yulia Navalnaya replied that she was glad to receive the award, but she would be even happier if her husband could do it personally. “But he is in prison,” Navalnaya said, “like many others who criticize Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine, protest or write comments on social networks.”

The Bamba Award was established in 1948. It is awarded for achievements in the field of television and media journalism and cinema. From 2020 to 2022, it was not awarded due to the coronavirus pandemic. The current ceremony in Munich was the first after a three-year break.

• Alexey Navalny is one of the most famous opposition politicians in Russia. He founded the “Fund to fight corruption”, which conducted high-profile investigations into corruption in state structures and big business. Ego is considered a personal enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2020, he survived poisoning with “Novichok” poison from the group of combat poisons, which independent investigators and Navalny himself accuse the FSB of. In 2019, the “Fund to fight corruption” was included by the Russian authorities in the list of so-called foreign agents, in 2021 it was recognized as an “extremist organization” and banned in Russia.
• Navalny is in a high-security prison in the Vladimir region on charges of fraud. In August 2023, the Moscow City Court found Navalny, who was already in prison, also guilty of creating an extremist community, calling for extremism and his financing, and sentenced the politician to 19 years in a special regime colony. Navalny has pleaded not guilty, many human rights organizations have recognized him as a political prisoner.