Fighting back her emotions just days after her husband’s suspicious death in a remote Russian prison, Yulia Navalnaya, the 47-year-old widow of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, vowed to press on with her husband’s activism against the increasingly authoritarian government of President Vladimir Putin.
“I will continue the cause of Aleksei Navalny,” she said in a social media video. “I will continue to fight for our country, and I call on you to stand beside me. Don’t just share the grief and unutterable pain that has enveloped us and won’t let go. I ask you to share my rage, fury, and hatred for those who dared to murder our future.
“I remind you of Aleksei’s words…. ‘It isn’t shameful to do too little. It is shameful to do nothing. It is shameful to surrender to your fear,’” she added.
I always thought the politician Aleksei Navalny was two people -- Yulia and Aleksei Navalny.... If anyone can continue his work, Yulia can.”-- Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats
It was an unexpected, but crystal clear, call for Russians to keep the hope for change that Navalny represented alive and to do their part to somehow make it happen in a country Putin has dominated for almost a quarter-century. But amid the most severe repressions since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s time and the ongoing war against Ukraine, Navalnaya faces a steep uphill battle in her bid to make a difference.
Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said Navalnaya’s proclamation was a “courageous act” -- and a “risky decision.”
“Yulia has taken on herself the responsibility of communicating, supporting, and inspiring people,” Gudkov told Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. “She called for support and that is why I have reacted. And I hope that, after what has happened, we can all unite, put our ambitions aside, forget the past offenses that have accumulated among the opposition and in our civil society.
“The enemy is powerful,” he said. “And I fear, unfortunately, this will not be the last political murder.”
Navalny’s death cast a pall over the already fractious and marginalized Russian opposition, whose most prominent figures have largely been driven abroad or imprisoned in an unrelenting crackdown on dissent that can be traced back at least as far as unprecedented anti-government protests, led in part by Navalny, in 2011-12. State repression was ramped up after the 2018 presidential election and intensified further following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Political analyst Yekaterina Shulman said there is a considerable disgruntled minority still within Russia but that Navalny’s death will likely “demoralize” and “paralyze” many.
WATCH: Yulia Navalnaya has vowed to continue his work in a video posted on social media. In it, Navalnaya also claimed that Russian authorities were delaying handing over his body until traces of Novichok poison disappeared from it.
“There is a great diversity among the various dissatisfied groups within Russia,” Shulman told RFE/RL’s Siberia.Realities. “Some are dissatisfied because of the war and some because the war is being conducting ‘ineffectively.’ Some are dissatisfied because of inflation and some because of intrusions into people’s private lives or restrictions on the Internet. Some fear personal repression or the repression of people within their circle.
“These people haven’t gone anywhere. But they are scattered,” she said. “It is still a question of who can coordinate them and how successfully.”
In a country where institutions meant to serve the public instead support the state, how to even go about it is also a question.
“There are no legal mechanisms to turn our rage into political change,” liberal writer and satirist Viktor Shenderovich noted.
Life Coach
Although Yulia Navalnaya, an economist by education, largely remained in the background during her husband’s stormy career as an opposition politician and anti-corruption activist, she has always been in the picture. She stood beside him throughout his many trials and political campaigns.
When he suddenly fell ill on a flight from Siberia to Moscow in August 2020, she fought publicly and successfully to secure his release for treatment of nerve-agent poisoning in Germany. The couple contended that the poisoning was carried out by Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives at Putin's behest.
In a joint interview with popular vlogger Yury Dud shortly before their January 2021 return to Russia, the Navalnys discussed their commitment to their political ideals. Navalnaya said she had never tried to persuade her husband to quit his activism.
“You’ve criticized me for being radical,” Navalny said to Dud. “I wish you could hear Yulia talking politics. You’d realize I’m very moderate.”
He added he believed his wife had been “radicalized” by the experience of fighting against government bureaucrats while her husband was critically ill.
In a January 2021 article on Navalnaya in Britain’s The Independent, Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats said Navalny “discusses each of his steps with Yulia in every detail.”
“Yulia is his life coach,” she said. “She makes him better.”
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, following Navalnaya’s announcement, Albats developed this thought.
“I always thought the politician Aleksei Navalny was two people -- Yulia and Aleksei Navalny,” she wrote. “As Yulia said in her statement, half of her has been killed…. But if anyone can continue his work, Yulia can.”
Exactly how she can do it, however, remains to be seen.
'Political Suspended Animation'
Navalnaya has lived outside of Russia for the last couple of years. In the summer of 2023, Russia’s state-run RT television, quoting law enforcement sources, said she would be arrested upon arrival if she ever tried to reenter the country.
For Deutsche Welle journalist Konstantin Eggert, the most important task is “to somehow be able to show that you are able pull a significant part of the country’s population -- of course, not a majority -- out of its current state of political suspended animation” and create “noticeable civil-disobedience campaigns.”
Secondly, Navalnaya will have to “mobilize Western opinion against Putin,” Eggert said. Most importantly, that would mean urging a massive increase in support for Kyiv’s war against the Russian invasion.
“This will be a huge challenge for Navalnaya,” he said, “because the position of supporting Ukraine…still evokes doubts for many in the Russian opposition. They wonder how Ivan Petrovich in Chelyabinsk or Maria Sergeyevna in Moscow will react.”
It is impossible, he argued, to discuss bringing down Putin without discussing support for Ukraine.
“Putin has made the war the foundation of his policies, so taking a position on the war is obligatory,” Eggert said. “It will be necessary to adopt a position that is radically different from Putin’s.”
Political analyst Maria Snegovaya agreed that the Russian public’s broad support for the war presents a dilemma for the opposition.
“Yulia and the rest of the opposition face the same problem that arose in 2014 over [the occupation of Ukraine’s] Crimea,” she told RFE/RL. “How can they be democratic politicians in a country where 80 or 90 percent support the annexation and the unprecedented violation of international borders? Today, we aren’t talking about 80 or 90 percent but 60 or 70 percent continue to support the war in Ukraine.
“In one way or another, the entire Russian opposition faces this problem,” Snegovaya said.
