WTH: Natan Sharansky on the Murder of Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny was allowed one book in his Siberian prison. He
chose Fear No Evil by former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky,
who joins us for an important conversation today to speak about
his correspondence with Navalny and his own experience in a
Siberian forced labor camp. Why did Navalny return to Moscow, and
to certain arrest? What were his aims? What is it like to be held
in what Sharansky refers to as his “alma mater” -- solitary
confinement? And given Navalny’s murder, has Putin’s regime
etched another notch in its belt, or is it still doomed to fail,
as Sharansky predicted long ago? We talk Putin, Hamas, liberalism
and neo-Marxism with one of the greats.


Natan Sharansky is a former Soviet refusnik, an Israeli
politician, author and human rights activist. In 1978, Sharansky
was convicted of treason and spying on behalf of the United
States, and was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment in a
Siberian forced labor camp. Sharansky served as Minister of
Industry and Trade from June 1996-1999. He served as Minister of
the Interior from July 1999 until his resignation in July 2000
and as Minister of Housing and Construction and Deputy Prime
Minister from March 2001 until February 2003. In February 2003,
Natan Sharansky was appointed Minister without Portfolio,
responsible for Jerusalem, social and Diaspora affairs. In
November 2006 Natan Sharansky resigned from the Knesset and
assumed the position of Chairman of the then newly-established
Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in
Jerusalem. In June 2009, he was elected and sworn in as Chairman
of The Jewish Agency for Israel, a post he still holds. Natan
Sharansky is the author of four books: Fear No Evil (1988), The
Case for Democracy (2004), Defending Identity (2008), and Never
Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People (2020).


Download the transcript here.


Read the WTH Substack here.


Read Navalny's letters to Sharansky here.