Julija Navalnaya at the Munich Security Conference on February 16th.
Image: AFP
Julija Navalnaya never sought her own political role. Now she wants to continue the cause of her late husband Alexei. Soon she wants to reveal who murdered her husband.
AWhen Julija Navalnaya published a video message for the first time on her husband's YouTube channel on Monday, her face reflected sadness and determination. “There should be another person in my place, but Vladimir Putin murdered this person,” says the widow about Alexei Navalnyj and the Russian President. Not only did he take away her husband and the father of her children, Darja, who was born in 2001, and Sakhar, who was seven years younger, “but Putin also took Navalny from you.” She will continue his cause.
The forty-seven-year-old had repeatedly represented her husband effectively during the last three years of his life spent in prison, the torment of which she recalls in the video. In his place, she accepted the Oscar last year for a documentary about the 2020 assassination attempt. After Navalny was arrested at passport control in Moscow upon returning from Germany in January 2021, his wife thanked supporters at the airport, took part in the mass protests for her husband's release, and like thousands of others was arrested and fined.