Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny, has declared her intention to run for president of Russia – however solely as soon as Vladimir Putin has gone.
Marking the launch of “Patriot”, the memoir her husband was writing earlier than his demise from a suspected state-authorised poisoning in a Russian penal colony earlier this yr, the 48-year-old vowed to “do every little thing to make [Putin’s] regime fall as quickly as doable”.
For now that must be from “outdoors Russia”, mentioned the BBC. However the day, Navalnaya believes, will inevitably come “when the Putin period ends and Russia as soon as once more opens up”.
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Political roots
Born in Moscow in 1976 on the peak of the Chilly Struggle, Yulia Abrosimova got here from a politically engaged household. Her father, Boris, labored for the Russian embassy in Britain whereas her aunt, Elena, was one of many authors of the Russian structure, which got here into impact in 1993 changing the Soviet Union.
Navalnaya studied worldwide economics and was interning at a enterprise faculty in Copenhagen in 1998, when she met the current legislation graduate Alexei Navalny whereas holidaying in Turkey. They married two years later simply as Vladimir Putin was coming to energy.
As her husband turned an more and more vocal and high-profile critic of the regime over the following 15 years, she discovered herself ever extra the main focus of state surveillance and a spotlight. When out with their daughter, Dasha, born in 2001, and son, Zakhar, born in 2008, she would usually be adopted by secret brokers, making an attempt to show it right into a recreation for her youngsters.
In post-Soviet politics, Navalny’s “magnetism, aptitude for social media and fluency on the street argot of youthful Russians all singled him out”, mentioned The Occasions.
This was in stark distinction to his spouse, who for years “sought to keep away from the limelight”, mentioned Politico. However behind the scenes “those that knew the couple properly mentioned Navalnaya not solely shared her husband’s views, but in addition helped form them”.
Into the limelight
Any probability of staying out of the general public eye resulted in 2020, when Navalny was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent. After receiving remedy in Germany, he determined to return to Russia in 2021, a transfer many – together with himself – knew represented a near-certain demise sentence.
And so it proved, when Navalny died in suspicious circumstances in February this yr, simply weeks earlier than he was as a consequence of be launched as a part of a prisoner trade with the West.
Since then “no single chief has emerged to unite the nation’s disparate opposition and there was vital infighting between totally different Russian dissident teams overseas”, mentioned Reuters.
Navalnaya’s present roles embrace chair of the Anti-Corruption Basis based by her husband and US-based Human Rights Federation. However together with her vow to proceed her husband’s campaign towards the Putin regime from overseas and in the future return to her homeland and run for president, she is undoubtedly now the “public face of Russia’s opposition”, mentioned The Occasions.
