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Navalny Being Evacuated by Cinema for Peace in a Medical Jet from Siberia to Berlin in 2020

by Jaka Bizilj

On August 20, 2020, when I woke up, I found several missed calls and messages on my iPhone. Upon returning the calls, Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova urgently asked me to evacuate her friend Alexei Navalny from Siberia to Berlin to save his life - a mission that unfolded in a sleepless, breathtaking three-day thriller. I had never met Navalny, yet suddenly found myself responsible for his life - a seemingly impossible mission in the beginning. President Macron, Chancellor Merkel, and the President of Finland all lent their assistance, crucial for Putin’s permission to fly him out, along with a letter from Juliya Nawalnaja to the Kremlin.

After I managed to put together, on August 20, in a race against the clock, a special jet, a medical crew, permissions, and confirmation by the Charite hospital - with the media following every minute of our action - the rescue plan finally took off at 3:11 am in Germany! Media like DER SPIEGEL published in their main headlines that the Cinema for Peace mission was underway to Siberia. Unfortunately, when we landed, there was no patient at the airport.

Due to Russian doctors' refusal to allow the coma patient to fly, stating that it would kill him, and their isolation of his wife, I appealed to Chancellor Merkel for help in granting our medical team permission to access and evaluate the coma patient. Upon receiving the results and having our medical team meet with Julia Navalny in a hotel, I contacted the Charité doctors to determine if Navalny was “fit to fly”. His body temperature mirrored that of a dying man. When I sent them Navalny’s medical data and asked if he would survive an evacuation, the Charité doctors responded: “These data are very, very, very bad. He is in an extremely life-threatening condition.” This did not help. I deferred the decision to his wife, who later thanked me upon her arrival in Berlin for insisting on keeping the plane grounded for two days, even though the patient had not been delivered to the runway as planned. The plane was initially booked for a simple pickup and return, but I instructed the team: “Nobody flies back without the patient! No matter the circumstances, no matter the costs.” These costs were later covered by an exiled Russian businessman in London (who wanted to stay first incognito and later published his name on Facebook) after I initially guaranteed tens of thousands with my credit card on August 20.

We successfully evacuated Navalny with our medical crew and plane to the Charité Hospital, where doctors once again saved his life, as first responders had done before when administering atropine after an emergency landing in Omsk, despite the FSB's closure of the airport due to an alleged terror alarm. After welcoming an unconscious Alexei Navalny and his wife Julia on the tarmac of the military part of Tegel Airport next to the German president's airplane - waiting for one hour to get the patient into the medical transportation - we left with a huge convoy of medical, police, and special cars to the hospital. I introduced his team and Julia Navalny to the Charité doctors in a brief meeting at the emergency care unit of Charité hospital in Berlin - and left, as our mission was concluded. Later, I read in a book and in “BILD” that the Russian authorities had sent spies into the Charité with the briefing: if they get caught they shall say that they belong to Cinema for Peace and are my friends. This was not the only occasion where I got the impression that German authorities don’t have control over what happens in our capital city - every day. When I had evacuated Pussy Riot's dissident Peter Verzilov two years before in similar conditions, his former wife Nadya arrived overnight without any luggage, and we went to buy a coat at Leipziger Platz as it was very cold. The Russians seemed to observe everything we did; the next day there were photos and headlines in Russian media stating that the founder of Pussy Riot went luxury shopping while her husband fought for his life in emergency care. These Russian spies even executed an alleged traitor in the middle of Berlin: the so-called infamous “Tiergarten Murderer” was one of the persons Navalny’s team hoped to exchange for Navalny, accusing the German and other officials of having acted too slowly for two years.

As we sadly now know after his death, we had bought the Nelson Mandela of Russia three more years to live. I did not believe Putin would let him go or keep him alive: It became apparent that after Vladimir Putin’s reputation had nothing further to lose following the killing of tens of thousands in Ukraine and after the Prigoschin uprising exposed the fragility of his power, it was only a matter of time before Putin would eliminate his top challenger. Navalny's team's calculation that he might be exchanged for the "Tiergarten murderer" in Berlin was, in my opinion, not realistic.

These three extra years of life were meaningful. In these three years, he exposed Kremlin corruption and villas to over 150 million YouTube viewers— 70 million in Russia, exposed his murderers on camera with Bellingcat, created a film that won an Oscar and raised global awareness, embracing the path of Nelson Mandela, establishing a movement, and becoming a martyr, serving as a symbol of hope for the future, demonstrating that there will always be brave individuals and leaders as alternatives to Putin.

The death of black South African activist Steve Biko in the 1980s marked the beginning of the end of the Apartheid regime, with the world embracing him as a symbol for all apartheid victims. The later governor Helen Zille exposed his story as a journalist, Peter Gabriel composed the song "Biko" and performed it at massive anti-apartheid concerts, and Oscar-winning director of "Gandhi," Richard Attenborough, made the film "Cry Freedom," prompting global boycotts against the apartheid regime.

I met recently at the Berlinale one of the producers of the Russian Navalny movie. He believed that Putin will be done soon and his regime will end the same way the regime of injustice came to an end in South Africa. Navalny's resilience and determination were evident in his quote, which he gave us in expectation of his destiny: “If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong.”

Click to watch the trailer of “Navalny” by Daniel Roher