--- title: The Story Behind TIME's Alexei Navalny Cover description: Navalny’s last letter arrived in mid-­January, and its tone was a lot darker than the other letters had been canonical: https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/ author: Edward Felsenthal article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-01-19T23:30:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T10:44:13.256Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Story Behind TIME's Alexei Navalny Cover og:description: Navalny’s last letter arrived in mid-­January, and its tone was a lot darker than the other letters had been og:url: https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6c69ed6672ac7d0/698a219809208f1749418c41/INT-TIM220131_Final.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: INT-TIM220131_Final og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Story Behind TIME's Alexei Navalny Cover twitter:description: Navalny’s last letter arrived in mid-­January, and its tone was a lot darker than the other letters had been twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6c69ed6672ac7d0/698a219809208f1749418c41/INT-TIM220131_Final.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Story Behind TIME's Interview with Alexei Navalny ## Video: The Imprisoned Leader of the Russian Opposition [Watch (HLS stream): The Imprisoned Leader of the Russian Opposition](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fZzhIDyb.m3u8) (6:42)  _Published 2022-01-19. A year has passed since Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition movement, returned to Moscow, having recovered from a nearly fatal attempt to poison him. He was arrested upon his return and sent to prison._  by [Edward Felsenthal](https://time.com/author/edward-felsenthal/)  ## Edward Felsenthal Felsenthal is the Executive Chairman and former Editor in Chief of TIME. Jan 19, 2022 11:30 PM UTC  Photo Illustration by Neil Jamieson for TIME  by [Edward Felsenthal](https://time.com/author/edward-felsenthal/)  ## Edward Felsenthal Felsenthal is the Executive Chairman and former Editor in Chief of TIME. Jan 19, 2022 11:30 PM UTC Last October, TIME’s Simon Shuster reached out to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with an interview request. It had been 10 months since Navalny’s voluntary [return to Russia](https://time.com/5930595/alexei-navalny-return-russia-why/) and imprisonment, and more than a year since he had been nearly killed by a chemical weapon. Simon has interviewed Navalny a half dozen times since he first emerged as a political force a decade ago, and the response suggested Putin’s public enemy No. 1 was happy to hear from him. In the town of Pokrov, where Navalny’s prison is located, “there is probably just one subscriber to TIME magazine,” he [wrote back to Simon](https://time.com/6140114/alexei-navalny-interview/). “And that’s me.” His lawyers had just brought him a recent issue that morning, which included [an article Simon wrote about a Holocaust memorial in Ukraine](https://time.com/6102593/ukraine-holocaust-memorial-kremlin-propaganda/). “I read it and thought: let’s do the interview,” Navalny said, drawing a little smiley face. **Read the cover story here:** [_The Man Putin Fears_](https://time.com/6140102/alexei-navalny-russia-profile/) With that, the two started a [correspondence](https://time.com/6140132/%D1%8D%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BB%D1%8E%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%B2-%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B2%D1%8C%D1%8E-%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B5%D1%8F-%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE/) that lasted well into January. The result is the powerful and moving profile of Navalny in this issue, a portrait of his life and of the political organization he continues to operate, improbably, from his barrack. Navalny’s last letter arrived in mid-­January, and its tone was a lot darker than the other letters had been. Navalny had been watching the U.S. negotiate with Russia about NATO and Ukraine, and it pained him to see the Americans get played, he said, “just like a frightened schoolboy who’s been bullied by an upperclassman.” --- ### More from TIME --- No journalist knows this terrain better than Simon, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Russia in 1989 and who has covered the region insightfully and courageously for us for over a decade. In exile, Navalny “would be just another gadfly, too easy for Putin to ignore,” Simon writes. “In prison he is a reminder of what Russia has become, and a symbol of the freedoms that it lost.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/"},"headline":"The Story Behind TIME's Interview with Alexei Navalny","datePublished":"2022-01-19T23:30:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T10:44:13.256Z","description":"Navalny’s last letter arrived in mid-­January, and its tone was a lot darker than the other letters had been","url":"https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/","keywords":["protests"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6c69ed6672ac7d0/698a219809208f1749418c41/INT-TIM220131_Final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Edward Felsenthal","jobTitle":"Felsenthal is the Executive Chairman and former Editor in Chief of TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/edward-felsenthal/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc6c69ed6672ac7d0/698a219809208f1749418c41/INT-TIM220131_Final.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"INT-TIM220131_Final","caption":"","creditText":"Photo Illustration by Neil Jamieson for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/protests/","name":"protests"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/","name":"The Story Behind TIME's Interview with Alexei Navalny"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The Imprisoned Leader of the Russian Opposition","description":"A year has passed since Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition movement, returned to Moscow, having recovered from a nearly fatal attempt to poison him. He was arrested upon his return and sent to prison.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/fZzhIDyb/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2022-01-19T14:05:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/fZzhIDyb.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/","duration":"PT6M42S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6140394/story-behind-time-alexei-navalny-cover/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```