The NYT article is aimed at western audiences, of course they are going to present a more humanistic pitch.

English language content from the russian “opposition” is often misleading.

In russian, Navalniy initially clearly stated that “Ukrainians, you should forget about Crimea” and that “Crimea is not a ham sandwich, you can’t just give it back!”

He later did a PR pass on his position with a call for an “independent referendum”; a typical russian imperialist mindset. The Ukrainian constitution only allows for national referendums on such matters.

Navalniy own head goon even confirmed that they supported the annexation of Crimea because the vast majority of russian are imperialists:

https://time.com/6162889/navalny-ukraine-russia-leonid-volkov/

He was most definitely not anti-war. The russian invasion of Ukraine began with the annexation of Crimea; which was supported by Navaliy and his team.

One of Yashin’s responsibilities as a deputy in 2018 was conscription. Russia has been at war with Ukraine since 2014.

Now I understand for Yashin the “real” war started in 2022 and he was just “looking to promote democracy by taking part in municipal politics”.

But that’s irrelevant if you are from Donbas and your family was forced to leave in 2014. Or if you language and religion are being prosecuted In Crimea.

Kara-Murza went a tired rant about how we sanctions need to be weakened

Pivaovarov stated opposition minded Russians shouldn’t donate to the AFU. Imagine dissidents of the Nazi regime (who took part in a prisoner exchange) stated that opposition minded Germans shouldn’t be supporting the war effort against Nazi Germany.