Aleksei Navalny’s Stanford daughter honors dad on Oscars stage

The 21-year-old daughter of Aleksei Navalny joined her mother and brother on stage at the 95th Academy Awards Sunday to celebrate the best documentary award going to “Navalny,” a portrait of how the imprisoned Russian opposition leader investigated his own poisoning after he stood up to the dictatorship of President Vladimir Putin.

Dasha Navalnaya, a junior at Stanford University, held back tears as “Navalny” director Daniel Rohrer praised their family’s courage and dedicated the award to her father, saying, “To all political prisoners around the world, Aleksei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all. We cannot, we must not be afraid to oppose dictatorship and authoritarianism whereever it reads its head.”

Dasha Navalnaya and her brother, Zakhar, also listened as mother Yulia Navalnaya briefly went to the podium and said, “My husband is in prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for defending democracy. Aleksei, I am dreaming of the day you will be free, and our country will be free. Stay strong my love.”

“Alexei, the world has not forgotten your vital message to us all: We cannot, we must not be afraid to oppose dictators and authoritarianism wherever it rears its head.”

“Navalny” wins the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.#Oscarshttps://t.co/OizA2V1EIT pic.twitter.com/XKW3M1wJjR

— ABC News (@ABC) March 13, 2023

An outspoken critic of the Kremlin, Navalny is currently serving a nine-year term at a maximum-security prison east of Moscow. The documentary is a real-life thriller that follows Navalny’s political rise as an anti-corruption crusader and outspoken critic of the Kremlin. In 2020, he survived poisoning by the nerve agent Novichok. Western officials and Navalny have said the attack was perpetuated by the Kremlin, while Russia has denied any involvement.

After recovering from the poisoning in Germany, Navalny returned to Moscow, where he was immediately arrested for violating probation terms imposed from a 2014 embezzlement case that he said was politically motivated. While in prison, Navalny has reportedly been brutalized with solitary confinement, sleep deprivation and lack of access to basic medical care. Even under those conditions, he has remained defiant and continues to denounce what Rohrer said is the “unjust war of aggression in Ukraine.”

Dasha Navalnaya appeared in “Nalvany,” showing support for her father’s decision to return to Russia even as she acknowledged her fear for his safety. While navigating exams and term papers at Stanford, she also has campaigned for her father and promoted the documentary, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported last month.

“I sort of perceive the documentary as this ‘get out of death’ card,” Dasha Navalnaya told Kristof. “The more awareness that we create, the less Putin and his posse would be tempted to kill my dad.”

Dasha Navalnaya also told CNN’s Erin Burnett that her father is still calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

“We will not stop fighting,” until the end of the war and until her father is released, Dasha Navalnaya told Burnett.

She said she hadn’t seen her father in person for more than a year but that his anti-corruption foundation will continue his work to one day ensure that Russia becomes “a free state” and has open elections, free speech, freedom of speech and the “opportunity to become a part of the normal Western democratized community.”

Before Sunday’s show, Dasha Navalnaya, in an elegant lime-green gown, appeared on the red carpet with Rohrer to tell a CNN reporter that her father is “doing all right,” though his health is “slowly deteriorating, which is quite concern.”

“He wants us to have a good time,” Dasha Navalnaya said. “He’s happy we’re here telling this story and representing the Russian people who are righting for democracy.”

Alexey Navalny’s daughter, Dasha Navalnaya, speaks to CNN about her father’s condition on the champagne carpet at the 95th Academy Awards. https://t.co/8nh3W41Xig pic.twitter.com/HKe15S57Rv

— CNN (@CNN) March 12, 2023