Alexei Navalny’s wife and political heir still has ‘big hopes’ for Russia

The exiled widow of Russia’s late opposition leader Alexei Navalny told POLITICO on Thursday that remaining hopeful about her home country is part of her job.

“I really have big hopes for Russia,” Yulia Navalnaya said in an interview at this year’s POLITICO 28 event. “I understand that it’s very difficult moment. It’s very difficult, difficult moment for the world. It’s very difficult moment for Europe, and, of course, it’s awful time for Russia.”

“But still, as I said, it’s very important for me to continue my husband’s work … He every day showed me, for many years, that never give up.”

Navalnaya, who lives in exile, has become a prominent voice for anti-Kremlin Russians since the sudden and mysterious death of her husband in a prison camp north of the Arctic Circle in February 2024. 

Even after Navalny’s death, Russian authorities have continued to crack down on associates of the late politician. In November, a Russian court designated Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation a “terrorist organization,” exposing anyone associated with the group to a potential life sentence.

Navalnaya said Russians who opposed the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine or the country’s President Vladimir Putin were “living in fear.” 

Invoking her husband’s legacy, however, she called on her fellow citizens and people elsewhere to “be resistant, to believe in their beliefs, to believe in their values.”