Yulia Navalnaya met her husband, then a young lawyer, on holiday in Turkey in 1998 (Archives)
Yulia Navalnaya has vowed to continue fighting for a “free Russia” for her dead husband Alexei Navalny and called on supporters to oppose President Vladimir Putin with unprecedented fury.
What do we know about Yulia Navalnaya?
her family and childhood
Yulia Navalnaya was born in Moscow on June 24, 1976, as Yulia Abrosimova. Her father, Boris Abrosimov, was a scientist, and her mother worked in the government.
Yulia Navalnaya graduated from the prestigious Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and worked for a period in a Moscow bank.
Family life with Alexei Navalny
She met her future husband, then a young lawyer, in 1998 while on holiday in Turkey. The newspaper Sobesednik wrote in a 2020 article about the couple that he was fascinated by her ability to know the names of all current Russian ministers by heart.
Two years later they got married, and Yulia Navalnaya became a housewife to the couple’s children, Daria, born in 2001, and Zakhar, born in Year 2008. She and Alexei Navalny were both former members of the liberal Yabloko party.
support husband
Yulia Navalnaya frequently appeared at her husband’s rallies, at campaign events and in court during his many trials.
She attended his first major criminal trial in Kirov in 2013, sitting calmly as he faced 10 years in prison for allegedly stealing from a timber company while working for Kirov’s liberal governor behind him.
“These bastards will never see our tears,” she said after Alexei Navalny was sentenced to five years in prison. He was unexpectedly released the day after the protest and subsequently suspended.
In 2013, Yulia Navalnaya stayed by her husband’s side during his subsequent campaign for mayor of Moscow, appearing on stage in front of thousands to urge Muscovites to vote for him.
Poisoning of Alexei Navalny
Yulia Navalnaya played a key role in her husband’s evacuation from Russia in August 2020 to a German hospital where he was treated and Western laboratory tests showed an attempt He was poisoned with a nerve agent in Siberia.
Yulia Navalnaya wrote directly to the Kremlin, calling on the Kremlin to intervene and allow Alexei Navalny to fly out of Russia.
The Kremlin responded that it had not received a formal request for the transfer of Representative Alexei Navalny, but had heard about it on social networks.
Alexei Navalny’s doctors in Omsk have repeatedly delayed his transfer, citing his poor health. Two days after Alexei Navalny was hospitalized, a plane organized by a German nonprofit arrived to fly him to Berlin.
Asked whether authorities had intervened to prevent Alexei Navalny from arriving in Germany, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “That was a decision by the attending doctor.”
arrested many times
Yulia Navalnaya has been arrested several times during protests related to her husband and his activities.
In January 2021, she was detained twice at rallies in Moscow in support of Alexei Navalny after he was jailed upon his return to Russia. “Sorry, the quality is bad. The lighting in the paddy cart is bad,” she wrote in a selfie posted on Instagram.
She was later fined 20,000 rubles ($265) by the court.
emotional toll
For Yulia Navalnaya, government pressure on her husband was not always easy to deal with. In 2017, ahead of his 2018 presidential campaign, Alexei Navalny told Reuters that security services were tracking his wife and children, who were 15 and 9 years old at the time.
“Cars kept passing by. I didn’t even pay attention to it anymore, but Yulia was really bothered,” Alexei Navalny said.
“My main feeling is that I should not relax and show weakness,” Yulia Navalnaya said in an interview in Germany after her husband was poisoned. “If I break, everyone breaks.”
future plans
Yulia Navalnaya posted a video message on Monday titled “I will continue the work of Alexey Navalny.” Currently living abroad, she says she wants to “build a free Russia” but has not yet spelled out her plans or said where she will settle.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
