Death of the Kremlin critic
Julia Navalnaya – the strong woman at Navalny’s side
Yulia Navalnaya, wife of Alexei Navalny
© Kai Pfaffenbach/Pool Reuters/AP / DPA
The news of her husband’s death reached Julia Navalnaya during the Munich Security Conference. She hasn’t seen Alexei Navalny personally for two years. She never gave up hope of seeing her husband free again.
Yulia Navalnaya had not seen her husband face to face for two years, as the wife of the prominent Russian Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny took the microphone at the Munich Security Conference on Friday. Just hours earlier, Russian authorities had announced that the 47-year-old had died in a prison camp in the Arctic Circle.
Navalnaya was supposed to speak at the security conference about the hope for a “better Russia,” but the news of her husband’s death changed everything. Instead of flying home, she said she decided to stay – she was sure her husband would have done the same.
With tears in her eyes, Navalnaya took a deep breath on the podium in Munich: “If that’s true, I want Putin, his staff, his entire environment, his entire government, his friends to know that they will be punished for what they did “What we’ve done to our country, my family and my husband,” the woman with tied-back platinum blonde hair said in a trembling voice. “And that day will come very soon.”
Navalny to his wife Julia: “I feel that you are close to me every second”
At Alexei Navalny’s side, Yulia Navalnaya experienced the hope that the large-scale demonstrations initiated by her husband spread in Russia. She took her husband to Germany for treatment after he was poisoned and hovered between life and death for days. She was with him when, just a few months later and barely recovered, Navalny flew back to Russia with his head held high and was arrested there immediately after landing.
Although the Russian authorities sentenced her husband to 19 years in a camp in various trials and despite the terrible prison conditions in which he was held, the 47-year-old did not give up hope. Navalnaya told “Spiegel” last year that she believed in seeing her husband free again: “Nothing is difficult when you love.”
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Navalny himself said of his wife that without her he would not have endured his bitter fight against the Kremlin and head of state Vladimir Putin. His last public message was a greeting to her on Valentine’s Day in which he wrote: “I feel that you are close to me every second.”
Julia Navalnaya fought for her husband’s treatment in Germany
In contrast to President Putin, whose private life is treated as a state secret in Russia, the Navalny couple showed themselves and their everyday lives publicly. Over time, Julia Navalnaya became just as much of a public figure as her husband.
Navalny’s colleagues even dreamed of Navalny’s future as a politician, even before Navalny himself was behind bars. She herself rejected this and emphasized that she was, above all, a mother and wife.
After Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in Siberia in August 2020 and fell into a coma, Yulia Navalnaya fought for days to ensure that her husband was treated in Germany instead of in Russia. The Russian doctors refused for days, but eventually they managed to fly Navalny to Berlin. “At every moment I thought, ‘I have to get him out of here,'” Navalnaya later reported.
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Five months later, she showed strength again when the couple returned to Moscow – knowing full well that the trip would end in prison. “Waiter, bring us vodka, we’re going home,” Navalnaya said during the flight, quoting a line from a Russian cult film. After landing, at passport control, the couple was separated and never saw each other again. A crowd of people greeted Navalnaya in front of the airport with shouts of “Julia!”
After the death of Alexei Navalny, many are wondering who other than Yulia Navalnaya could unite the Russian opposition, which has been decimated or driven into exile by countless arrests, as a leading figure. Her speech at the Munich Security Conference further strengthened her reputation as a strong woman and personality. For the political scientist Tatjana Stanovaya it is clear: “Whether Yulia Navalnaya wants it or not – she will become a political personality.” She is expected at the Council of EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels on Monday.