Navalny speaks about possibility of defeating Putin, his life in prison and sanctions against Russia in an interview with NYT

In an interview with The New York Times, his first with a news organization since his arrest in January, Mr. Navalny talked about his life in prison, about why Russia has cracked down so hard on the opposition and dissidents, and about his conviction that “Putin’s regime,” as he calls it, is doomed to collapse.

Navalny says he spends much of his time tidying his cellblock, reading letters and visiting the mess for meals, with porridge often on the menu.

But perhaps the most maddening thing, he suggested, is being forced to watch Russian state TV and selected propaganda films for more than eight hours a day in what the authorities call an “awareness raising” program that has replaced hard labor for political prisoners.

“Reading, writing or doing anything else” is prohibited, Mr. Navalny said of the forced screen time. “You have to sit in a chair and watch TV.” And if an inmate nods off, he said, the guards shout, “Don’t sleep, watch!”

Mr. Navalny started a major opposition movement to expose high-level corruption and challenge President Vladimir V. Putin at the polls. He was imprisoned in March after he returned to Russia from Germany knowing he was facing a parole violation for a conviction in a case seen as politically motivated. Mr. Navalny has not been entirely mute since his incarceration. Through his lawyers, who visit him regularly, he has sent out occasional social media posts.

Nor is he being actively muzzled by the Kremlin. When asked about Mr. Navalny’s social media presence on Tuesday, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that it was “not our business” if Mr. Navalny spoke out.

But the written exchange of questions and answers covering 54 handwritten pages is by far his most comprehensive and wide-ranging account.