“Continue to fight for our country”: who is Yulia Navalnaïa, pugnacious widow of Alexeï Navalny?

By force of circumstances, she became the face of the opposition to Vladimir Putin. Yulia Navalnaïa (47), widow of Russian opponent Alexeï Navalny, declared in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter) that she was ready to take up the torch and continue the fight led by her husband, who died in an Arctic prison last Friday. Sworn enemy of the master of the Kremlin, he was serving a 19-year prison sentence for “extremism”.

And then it came to Alex Navaly. Продолжать бороться за нашу с вами страну. It will be sent to you today. pic.twitter.com/aBOIvcYHHk

— Yulia Navalnaya (@yulia_navalnaya) February 19, 2024

“Continue to fight for our country. And I invite you to stand next to me. We must unite to strike at one blow Putin, his friends, the thugs in epaulettes, the courtiers and the killers who want to paralyze our country,” she said, looking serious and with a tight throat. These words full of determination have already been briefly censored since his X account was, for a few minutes, deactivated this Tuesday before the social network led by Elon Musk restored it.

“Youlia, you saved my life”

Not hesitating to name Vladimir Putin as the number 1 responsible for her husband’s death, she also declared that she “did not care” about the Kremlin’s statements about her. “Return Alexei’s body and let us bury him with dignity, don’t stop people from saying goodbye to him,” she added on X. Before being deprived of her husband, she had moved heaven and earth to get him out of trouble afterwards his poisoning with Novichok, a powerful poison developed during the Soviet Union. Seeing her husband die, she managed to obtain his transfer to Germany where he was able to receive care.

An episode, which earned this trained economist to receive the title of “Heroine of the Year”, awarded by the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta who notably wrote that “Navalny was lucky. Not in surviving Novichok, (…) but with his wife Yulia”. The latter also returned to this episode with YouTuber Iouri Doud. “It was terrifying. But I couldn’t relax (…) I’m his wife. If I collapse, everyone collapses, like dominoes. So I did my best to keep calm and get him out of there.”

Alexei Navalny himself publicly thanked his wife. “Youlia, you saved my life,” he declared when he came out of the coma. Acclaimed on her return to Russia, alongside her husband, she barely had time to kiss him before he was arrested and then imprisoned. With the exception of a few visits to prison behind glass, it was the last time she was able to hug the man with whom she was about to celebrate 20 years of marriage. The couple also appeared proudly and regularly on social networks, alongside their two children, Daria, 23, and Zakhar, 16. They did not hesitate to share short sequences of complicity on TikTok and Instagram, on a daily basis or during their vacations.

@_navalny_#любовьсильнеестраха♬ original sound – Навальный

What influence in the opposition to Putin?

Three years later, it is on the front of the stage, in the heart of the Russian political sphere, that Yulia Navalnaïa now finds herself propelled. A role that she would undoubtedly have preferred never to take on, as evidenced by the first words spoken in her video posted on social networks. “I shouldn’t be here. There should have been another person in my place. But that person was killed by Vladimir Putin.”

Some draw a parallel with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who became leader of the Belarusian opposition after the imprisonment of her husband, Sergei Tikhanovski. If Yulia Navalnaïa has often repeated that she did not wish to embrace such a destiny, the situation has clearly changed. However, like the Belarusian dissident, established in Lithuania, the influence, in Russia, of Navalny’s widow could prove to be quite limited. “I’m quite skeptical. The system is very locked, I don’t see what a personality based abroad could do. She could always have a symbolic role in the West, but from there get echo in Russia. .. It’s something else,” says Françoise Thom, lecturer and specialist in post-communist Russia.

Considering the fate reserved for Alexeï Navalny, it is difficult to imagine his widow crossing Russian borders again. And it seems unlikely that the Russian authorities will allow possible hostile remarks against the Kremlin made by Navalnaïa to proliferate on social networks. Especially since, even from abroad, his action could have a price. “Let’s not forget the legislation that Putin has just adopted. From now on, the property of those who criticize the regime or the war in Ukraine can be confiscated,” recalls Françoise Thom. In view of the tightening of repression exercised by the Kremlin, Yulia Navalnaïa’s fight has only just begun.