Before the shock death of her husband Alexei in a grim Arctic prison last week, Yulia Navalnaya had always played down the idea she would one day take over as leader of Russia’s opposition. But on Monday, she vowed to continue his fight.
In a video released three days after his death and less than a month before Russia’s next presidential election, the 47-year-old mother-of-two alternated between rage and grief as she signalled she would try to help lead a shell-shocked opposition.
“In killing Alexei, (President Vladimir) Putin has killed half of me. Half of my heart and half of my soul. But there is another half of me, and it tells me that I have no right to give in. I will continue Alexei Navalny’s work, I will continue the struggle for our country,” she said.
Should she take her husband’s mantle, Navalnaya would follow a path trodden by activist widows in other parts of the world, from U.S. civil rights campaigner Coretta Scott King to Corazon Aquino of the Philippines. Closer to home, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya stood for president reluctantly after her husband Syarhei was jailed in 2020.
In a sign that some forces see Navalnaya as a possible threat, several pro-Kremlin social media accounts have begun to try to undermine her by publishing what allies say is falsified information about her life.
Recording her video in a dimly-lit room, Navalnaya accused Putin of murdering her husband and made clear she wanted revenge. The Kremlin says the authorities played no role in Navalny’s death.
“I call on you to share my fury. My fury, my anger, my hatred of those who dared to murder our future,” she said.
Any successor of Navalny would inherit a battered opposition movement whose key figures are either dead, jailed or in exile.