News / Marvin Rees
Marvin Rees defends his friend Alexei Navalny in Channel 4 documentary
A Channel 4 documentary, The Man Putin Couldn’t Kill, does not solely present Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny in a positive light.
As well as Navalny’s heroic attempts to expose corruption, the documentary also draws attention to two videos he had made in the mid-2000s, one in support of gun ownership and another against immigration.
His nationalist sympathies led him to march alongside neo-Nazis and others on the right wing fringe at several rallies.
Following his appearance on Channel 4 News less than a week ago, Marvin Rees reappears on the channel as a talking head to talk about his friend who he met in 2009 on the Yale World Fellows Programme, in Rees’ own words, “people who they identify as being potential global leaders, influencers”.
The Yale World Fellows Program class of 2010 including Marvin Rees and Alexei Navalny – photo: Yale World Fellows Program
Bristol’s mayor strongly refuted allegations that Navalny has been recruited by the CIA or was himself corrupt.
“I know him as a person I made friends with,” says Rees.
“We sat next to each other in class. We had lunch together. We went on socials together. Since then I hear people attempting to pigeonhole him as xenophobic, anti-immigrant, racist, hostile and all these other things.
“There is always going to be an attack on his character, an attempt to discredit the work he’s been doing to expose these frauds. Just like there was an attempt to charge him with corruption a few years ago.
“But even where he has said things that are problematic, my experience of him leaves me with hope for him.”
After surviving an assassination attempt in , Navalny returned to Russia where he remains in prison for violating the terms of his probation by leaving the country.
Main photo: Channel 4
Read more: Marvin Rees’ concerns for his friend, Alexei Navalny
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