In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meets with the heads of leading media outlets from the BRICS member countries in the Moscow region on October 18, 2024. Agence France-Presse
LONDON — Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, told a UK newspaper that she one day hoped to see President Vladimir Putin go from being “tsar of Russia to an ordinary prisoner”.
Navalnaya, whose husband died in an Arctic prison in unclear circumstances in February following years as Putin’s top political opponent, also vowed to keep up her husband’s work, but said she would not be returning to Russia to do so.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Times, the 48-year-old revealed that she had never discussed leading Russia’s opposition movement with Navalny in the event of his death.
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“I think he would love to keep me far from these political, dangerous things,” she told the paper, which released the interview days before her late husband’s posthumous memoir is published on October 22.
“But you just realise you don’t have a choice. Of course you could just keep silent. But it’s not me. I would never give up on Russia.”
Navalnaya — for many years based in Germany — added she would not return to Russia until she knew she “won’t be imprisoned in an airport like Alexei”, conceding that “nobody knows” when that might be possible.
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Russia in July added her to its list of “terrorists” and “extremists”, and has also issued an arrest warrant.
Russian officials frequently apply such labels to opposition figures and those who campaign against the Kremlin or its offensive in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has since added at least nine more people linked to Navalny to its blacklist, including former spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and the chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation Maria Pevchikh.
Asked about her feelings towards Putin, Navalnaya insisted she did not hate the Russian leader, but did want to see him imprisoned, “like my husband was”.
“I want him to go from being a kind of tsar of Russia to an ordinary prisoner in Russia,” she said.
Discussing Navalny’s decision to return to Russia in January 2021, prompting his immediate arrest, his widow said she “absolutely understood that you need to fight”.
“It’s his life, it’s his choice, it’s his beliefs. To persuade him to stay in exile, I would feel much more guilty,” she explained.
“I am trying not to look back. Otherwise it will bring me to a lot of difficult thoughts. And it will make my really difficult life even harder.”
Navalnaya also noted she had been “a bit sceptical” about the prospects for a mooted prisoner swap that involved Navalny before his death.
“I know how it works when you negotiate with Putin.
“He all the time lies. That’s why I never thought it could happen tomorrow.”