Yulia Navalnaya: Who is the wife of Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny? Why is Alexei Navalny's body not being released?

Yulia Navalnaya – the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – vowed on Monday to continue his fight against the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin

Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of Putin critic Alexei Navalny who died in a Russia prison last week, has pledged she will continue her husband’s work, vowing to “fight more desperately and furiously than before” – as she claimed the politician had been poisoned with nerve agent Novichok.

In a move that echoes that of Belarusian opposition politician in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Ms Navalnaya said in a video posted to YouTube that she wanted to “strike at” Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime.

This comes as Mr Navalny’s spokesman said his supporters had been told his body would not be released for 14 days. His mother and legal team have been in Siberia since shortly after his death, where they have been refused access to see his body.

Leading Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya, takes part in a meeting of European Union Foreign Ministers in Brussels, Belgium. Picture: Yves Herman/AFP via Getty Images

Ms Navalnaya said she believed the Kremlin was “hiding his body” to allow traces of Novichok to disappear. In the nine-minute video, which has been interpreted by some as a rallying cry against leader Vladimir Putin weeks ahead of the Russian elections, Ms Navalnaya called on supporters to stand beside her. The Russian elections are due to take place in March.

“I am going to continue the work of Aleksei Navalny and continue to fight for our country,” Ms Navalnaya said.

“I call on you to stand beside me, to share not only in the grief and endless pain that has enveloped us and won’t let go. I ask you to share my rage – to share my rage, anger and hatred of those who have dared to kill our future.”

Ms Navalnaya added: “I know it feels impossible to do any more, but we have to – to come together in one strong fist and strike with it at this maddened regime, at Putin, at his friends and his bandits in uniform, at these thieves and killers who have crippled our country.”

A woman reacts as she lays flowers to pay the last respect to Alexei Navalny at the monument, a large boulder from the Solovetsky islands, where the first camp of the Gulag political prison system was established, in Moscow. Picture: AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

She has previously rejected the idea that she could become more active in Russian politics.

Last year, Ms Navalnaya told German magazine Der Spiegel: “I don’t think this is an idea I want to play with.”

The 47-year-old, a long-time anti corruption activist in Russia, died while in prison in the Russian region of Siberia. In December, he seemed to have disappeared from the prison near Moscow where he had been held and was not contactable by his legal team, who feared for his safety. However, he later turned up in a prison in Siberia.

He announced his intent to run against Mr Putin in the presidential elections in 2018. However, he was barred from doing so due to a prior criminal conviction for corruption. Mr Navalny subsequently called for a boycott of the election. In 2020, he was hospitalised in Omsk, Russia, on suspicion of poisoning, but survived.

Last year, Mr Navalny, who has two teenage children with Ms Navalnaya, revealed letters sent to him in prison by his wife were being redacted by the authorities or seized by security forces, amid claims she was plotting “crimes”. He said he believed the authorities had her on a list due to a childhood prank she carried out at school where she stole a briefcase from a classmate.

Mr Navalny, who was known for his humour, wrote on X: “When you are looking for a wife, be sure to check the potential spouse: whether she has a history of being registered as a juvenile delinquent. I didn't do that and here I am.

"On a daily basis, the administration informs me that they are unable to deliver another letter from Navalnaya Y.B. The correspondence was seized by the censor because it contained signs of preparation for a crime. It applies to all recent letters.

"I wrote to her, saying ‘Yulia, stop preparing crimes! Instead, cook a borscht for the kids’. However, she can't stop. She continues to invent new crimes and keeps writing to me about them in letters.”

Ms Navalnaya, who was born in 1976, was an economics graduate and worked in banking until having her children.

She was not a prominent figure until she personally wrote to Mr Putin to ask for her husband to be released for treatment in Germany after his poisoning in 2020. After he recovered, the pair returned to Russia together and he was immediately arrested.

Former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has previously said Ms Navalnaya shares her husband’s “convictions, his bravery, his fearlessness".

Ms Navalnaya’s hint that she may follow in her husband’s footsteps as an opposition leader follows a similar decision by Belarusian Ms Tsikhanouskaya, who stepped in after her husband, Siarhei, was arrested just before the election in 2020, where he was due to stand in opposition to long-term leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Although she was widely believed to have won the majority of the vote, Mr Lukashenko claimed victory. Ms Tsikhanouskaya was forced to flee the country for Lithuania, where she runs an opposition government in exile.

Kira Yarmysh, Mr Navalny’s spokesperson, said the Russian authorities had said his body would be subject to “chemical examination”.

“The investigators told the lawyers and Alexei’s mother that they would not give them the body,” she said.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday — the same day her husband’s death was announced — Ms Navalnaya, who met EU foreign affairs ministers on Monday, said: “I want Putin, his friends, and the government to know that they will be held accountable for what they have done to our country, our family, and my husband.”