2024-02-21 16:11:00
The wife of the main Russian opposition leader, Yulia Navalnaya, has always preferred to remain in the shadow of her husband – she spoke, which sees its main task as “no matter what, nothing changes in the family: children are children, and the house is a home.” The death of Alexei Navalny instantly brought her into the spotlight of the world press and forced her to become a public politician. Already on February 16 – the day the Russian authorities announced that the leader of the Russian opposition had died in a colony above the Arctic Circle – Navalnaya made a statement at the Munich Security Conference, promising that Vladimir Putin and his entourage would be held accountable “for what they did with our country, with my family and with my husband.” Next, she turned to the Russians, declaring that she would continue the work of Alexei Navalny. Then, on February 19, Navalnaya held meetings in Brussels with the leadership of the European Union – she called on the European authorities not to recognize the results of the upcoming presidential elections in Russia, to strengthen sanctions against Putin’s elites and to help Russian political refugees. This is what they are writing and saying about Yulia Navalnaya in the Western press right now.
The New York Times: Wife, protector, and now political heir: Yulia Navalnaya unites Russians
Yulia Navalnaya faces a distinct challenge in trying to rally a frustrated opposition movement abroad, whose hundreds of thousands of supporters have been driven out of the country by threats of imprisonment for their anti-war stance. Her husband’s political movement was declared extremist by the authorities in 2021 and banned in Russia.
Navalnaya has a chance to succeed thanks to her combination of intelligence, poise, steely determination, resilience, pragmatism and star power, her friends and associates say. Navalnaya remains a prominent female figure in a country where prominent women in politics are still rare. In addition to her broad moral authority, analysts say, she could benefit from Russia’s generation gap, where younger Russians are more receptive to gender equality.
Companions describe Navalnaya as her husband’s protector and closest adviser, his moral tuning fork and a shoulder to lean on and cry on. “Politician Alexei Navalny has actually always been two people: Yulia and Alexei,” says journalist Evgenia Albats. Writer Mikhail Zygar notes that the Navalnys always looked like a Hollywood couple – tall, attractive, with a strong connection clearly visible in public. Navalny has frequently sparred publicly with politicians and journalists, and his wife has sharply rebuked those who attack him. But overall she has much less political baggage, which gives her a better chance of getting the Russian opposition to work together, Zygar says. Ultimately, a “normal person” with moral authority can succeed where a career politician has failed, observers say.
“She wants to complete the task that Alexei tragically left unfinished: to make Russia a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous country,” says family friend and renowned Russian economist Sergei Guriev. “She is also going to demonstrate to Putin that eliminating Alexei will not destroy his life’s work.”
Politico: Who is Yulia Navalnaya – Putin’s new enemy?
“By killing Alexei, Putin killed half of me, half of my heart and half of my soul. But I still have the other half, and it tells me that I have no right to give up. I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny,” said Yulia Navalnaya in an appeal published on YouTube on February 19.
It was a passionate and undeniably political statement. Navalnaya appears to be following in the footsteps of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who, after her husband’s imprisonment, took on the role of leader of the Belarusian opposition despite having no previous experience.
Navalnaya’s announcement surprised many, as she had for years rejected the idea that she wanted to make her own political career. At the same time, behind the scenes, many knew well that Navalnaya not only shared her husband’s views, but also helped shape them. “At every stage of Alexey’s career, Yulia was always by his side,” says Anna Veduta, an employee of the American branch of FBK. “There was some kind of telepathic connection between them.” Sometimes they didn’t even need to speak, they thought the same thing.”
Navalny’s closest associates have already expressed support for his wife, and FBK director Ivan Zhdanov wrote, that “now Yulia is taking Alexey’s place.” “It was always important for her that children remain children, that the house remains a home, and the family remains a family. But now she has no choice. They are united, she will never back down or betray her ideals,” adds Veduta.
Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, believes that ordinary Russians may be more skeptical of Yulia Navalnaya. “It will be difficult for her to break through to a Russian audience due to her image as not just a supporter of liberal Western values, but also a figure used by the West to overthrow Putin. At home in Russia, this is her curse,” says Stanovaya.
The political scientist also believes that comparison with Tikhanovskaya may not be in Navalnaya’s favor, since in exile the leader of the Belarusian opposition is considered an essentially powerless figure. However, Navalnaya remains beyond the Kremlin’s reach. “This is, of course, pretty bad news for the Russian regime,” Stanovaya concludes.
CNN: Yulia Navalnaya inspires hope in the Russian opposition. She faces enormous challenges
Alexei Navalny’s goal of confronting and exposing the evils of the Putin regime has now been handed over to a fragmented, fragmented and partially broken Russian opposition with a new figurehead: Yulia Navalnaya.
In 2020, in an interview with Yuri Dudu after Alexey Navalny suffered from Novichok poisoning, the politician’s wife said: “I absolutely support what Alexey is doing. I speak completely sincerely. And giving up halfway is not healthy.” If Navalnaya wants to ensure that her husband’s political movement does not fail, now is her moment. The mass of public emotions and international attention over Navalny’s death are serious tailwinds for her, says Boris Bondarev, a former adviser to the Russian mission to the UN in Geneva, the only Russian diplomat to publicly resign over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Navalnaya’s actions and statements in the first hours and days after her husband’s death—an address to world leaders at the Munich Security Conference and a trip to Brussels to meet with EU leaders—put her in a “strong position,” Bondarev said.
Still, if Navalnaya wants to do more than just continue the work of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, if it comes to creating a functioning opposition within Russia, she may need a very different approach from her husband.
The question of whether Navalnaya can become a unifying force for those who oppose Putin will be a big test for her. “If she offers broad participation to all opposition forces on an equal basis, then the situation will change,” Bondarev says. If she doesn’t, he believes, eventually “people will wake up and see that nothing is changing.”
Time: “Such work cannot be stopped now”: Evgenia Kara-Murza on the fight for a free Russia after the death of Navalny
Few people understand what Yulia Navalnaya is going through now better than Evgenia Kara-Murza. Like Navalnaya, she has experienced first-hand what it means when her husband is jailed for challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, has been imprisoned since 2022 because of his opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She also experienced what it means when someone makes an attempt on your family. Like Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza was poisoned by the Kremlin. Twice. And like Navalnaya, who vowed to continue her husband’s fight for a “free, peaceful and happy Russia,” Kara-Murza understands what makes you pick up where your partner left off.
“I’m glad that she decided to continue Alexei’s work, to continue his legacy. I think maybe this will help her cope with what she’s going through now,” says Kara-Murza. “I know that work always helps me when I am very afraid for Vladimir’s life, and I know that it will also give Yulia a sense of purpose now that she has lost the person she loved more than anything in the world.”
The wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza had never met Yulia Navalnaya before, since both were not public people, but now she is ready to join forces to fight the Putin regime and stop the war. “I was very impressed by Yulia’s statement. I think the strength and resilience that comes from her is all the more impressive when you understand what she is going through,” she says.
The struggle is taking on an increasingly feminine face, and women can bring back a long-forgotten understanding of values to the world of politics, Kara-Murza believes. She herself, like Navalnaya, continues the work of her husband – out of loyalty to him and the values that they share together. “I have the motivation to continue my husband’s work. I have the motivation of a Russian citizen who sees that the Russian state is killing civilians in Ukraine. And I also owe it to my children, because if I want to teach my children what true love and partnership is, I have to show it through my own example. If your loved one is in trouble, you fight for him,” concludes Kara-Murza.
Listen to the podcast “What Happened” about the political future of Yulia Navalnaya
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