Yulia Navalnaya released a video speech in which she vowed to continue her late husband’s political work and called on Russians to rally around her to fight for a free Russia.
“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia,” Navalny said in a powerful nine-minute video posted on social media.
“I ask you to stand with me. Share not only the sadness and the endless pain, but also the anger. Anger, rage, hatred for those who dare to kill our future.”
Navalnaya, 47, accused Russian authorities of killing her husband and hiding his body, waiting for traces of the nerve agent Novichok to wear off.
“I shouldn’t have been in this place and I shouldn’t have recorded this video. There should have been another person in my place. But that person was killed by Vladimir Putin. ” Navalnaya said, her voice sometimes shaking with emotion.
She said she now understands “why Putin killed Alexei three days ago.” “I’ll tell you that soon,” she added.
Navalnaya said that by “killing Alexei” Putin “killed half of me, half of my heart and soul.”
“But I still have another half, and that tells me that I have no right to give up,” continued Navalnaya, who last saw her husband two years ago.
For years, Mr. Navalnaya shunned publicity and gave few media interviews. Instead, she stands by her husband as he galvanizes mass protests in Russia, sends her poisoned and comatose husband out of the country, and when she wakes up, she She returned to Moscow with her husband.
“I have been by Alexei’s side all these years,” Navalnaya said on Monday. “But today I want to be by your side because I know you’ve lost as much as I have.”
Navalnaya lives abroad and said her main goal was to protect her two children from the influence of her late husband’s political activities.
“Putin killed the father of my children. Putin took away the most precious thing I had, the person closest to me and the person I loved most in the world,” she said. said.
Alexei Navalny’s last message to the outside world was to his wife on Valentine’s Day: “I feel you are with me every second.”
At a time when his death has shocked and demoralized the Russian opposition, many at home and abroad will see Navalnaya as the natural successor to the Russian opposition. Some posted on her social media to show their support for her.
“Putin thought that if he killed Mr. Navalny, his name would be forgotten,” Ivan Zadonov, a close family friend, wrote in X. Free Yulia. Yuria is driven by noble and righteous anger. President Putin made a grave mistake in killing Alexei. ”
Exiled opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov wrote: “Yulia, I wish you strength and patience!” Count on my support!”
Mr Navalny’s dramatic video message was released hours before he addressed EU foreign ministers in Brussels as Germany proposed new sanctions over his death.
“Never forget that Russia is not Putin and Putin is not Russia,” Navalnaya told them, dressed in black, and urged the EU and the West to “target Mr. Putin’s circle and oligarchic allies.” He implored them to do more to achieve this goal.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who welcomed Navalnaya in Brussels, said EU foreign ministers had “expressed the EU’s deepest condolences” to her. “Vladimir Putin and his regime will be held responsible for the death of Alexei Navalny,” he said.
Sanctions could include the use of Russia’s frozen assets, a measure that would be in addition to the penalties Belgium collects on interest on fixed cash reserves.
Borrell added Russian prison officials involved in Navalny’s death to the list of people subject to asset freezes and travel bans in the 13th round of sanctions against Russia since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. suggested that it might be possible. He is still waiting for approval from Hungary.
Earlier on Monday, Navalny’s aides announced that his mother and lawyer were not allowed access to the morgue in the Russian town of Salekhard, near the prison colony where authorities said he died.
“One of his lawyers was literally kicked out,” Mr. Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, wrote to X, adding that morgue staff would not answer questions about the whereabouts of Mr. Navalny’s body.
Mr Navalny’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, and her lawyer traveled to the notorious Polar Wolf IK-3 penal colony north of Russia’s Arctic Circle last weekend to track down Mr Navalny. Navalny had been detained there since last year. The body was found, but she received conflicting information from various agencies about its location, and her son was never recovered and left without ever seeing her.
The Kremlin said on Monday it had “nothing to add” to the news of Navalny’s death. He denies involvement in Navalny’s death.
